Sebastian Vettel wins the Bahrain Grand Prix

2013 Bahrain Grand Prix summary

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Sebastian Vettel scored his second win of the season in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver slipped behind Fernando Alonso at the start but attacked him at the exit of turn four and claimed the position back.

Vettel then applied pressure to pole sitter Nico Rosberg and was through into the lead before the DRS zone was activated.

Alonso used DRS to take second off Rosberg but ran into trouble as his flap wouldn’t close. He made two visits to the pits as Ferrari attempted to fix it but had to resort to driving the race without it.

While Vettel made three visits to the pits Kimi Raikkonen climbed through the field by making just two stops. Paul di Resta led the two-stoppers to begin with but was passed by both Lotuses during the race.

The second Lotus to come by him belong to Romain Grosjean, who moved up from 11th to claim the final podium place and re-form the same top three from this race last year.

Lewis Hamilton came out on top of a four-way battle for fifth. He and Sergio Perez passed Mark Webber on the final lap, the McLaren driver having passed the recovering Alonso earlier.

Rosberg pitted four times as he slumped to finish ninth ahead of Jenson Button, who was unhappy with his team mate’s driving in wheel-to-wheel contact.

2013 Bahrain Grand Prix

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Image © Red Bull/Getty

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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44 comments on “Sebastian Vettel wins the Bahrain Grand Prix”

  1. I think the fact Webber was taken by Hamilton proves Red Bull didn’t have magic 2011 pace all of a sudden.

    1. You are clearly overlooking the fact that RBR sabotages Webber’s car every race! ;-)

      1. Also Vettel has a Super Mario special-hyper-super-duper-gold-mushroom bolted to his engine that gives him an advantage.

      2. @aka_robyn – how could I forget! I take it all back :P

        @hellotraverse not to mention all the illegal parts like he had last year ;)

    2. It’s not all of a sudden at all. Didn’t you watch last season?

      1. It’s no RBR’s fault that they have the skill and consistency that the like of McLaren lack. RBR did have a very good car last year and had the common sense to build on it rather than start from scratch.

        Note: I’m not Helmut Marko… ;)

    3. Even in 2011 Webber finished many races behind Alonso in a car that was not able to generate heat into the harder tyres, so Webber having a bad race is not a proof that Red Bull isn’t dominant
      BTW Helmut Marko himself recognized that the RB9 is the car with the most amount of downforce on the grid, another proof that the RB9 is a very fast car in qualifying yesterday Vettel did only one lap in Q3 a part the fact that he is quick driver over one lap ,the team was very sure of the potential of the RB9
      I imagine that if the RB9 is running on 2011 spec tyres Vettel would have already won all the races, like i said Webber having a bad weekend isn’t an indicator of Red Bull performances but still a brilliant race by Vettel in terms of being quick and managing his tyres

    4. I think it was more down to Webbers tyres being on the way out.

    5. And last year at Canada Hamilton, Alonso, Perez and Vettel lapped Button. I guess we can say that Mclaren was actually a dog last year.

      1. @solo – so your claiming Webber was as bad today as Button was last year? Please.

  2. I think we should have a pole on which Ferrari driver was the unluckiest.

    Alonso: Unable to use his DRS almost the whole race and did an extra pit stop than planned.
    Massa : For some reason, he pitted much earlier than he should have in his first stint.
    Plus, he had to face with two consecutive punctures out of nowhere.
    Also, he did 20 laps with the medium tyres at the end.

    I vote for Massa.

    1. Good idea lol. for sure Massa was way unluckier.

    2. Nice, but Alonso’s troubles were mainly caused by Ferrari or Alonso who made another idiotic decision again after Malaysia, opening the flap after it stuck thus forcing him to the pit again and losing like 20 seconds. Without that, he could have been on the podium.

      1. @lajo agree on that … If they wanted to try it anyway they should have done so before a planned pit. Running a stint without DRS then trying it before changing tyres for the second time, this way they won’t have lost any time at all …

    3. massa obv..he pitted early on lap 11-12 coz he had a damaged front wing which clearly meant more pressure on the tyres for getting the same pace..got 2 punctures coz of this extra pressure…disaster and forgetful race for both ferrari and massa…this was the reason y massa was very slow in his final stinct so that atleast he doesnt make another stop..!!

  3. Good drive by Vettel.

    Alonso also impressed me. After pitting twice in two laps he still managed to finish right behind the train for 5th place. With DRS I’m sure he could have made up more places.

    1. with DRS, I believe he would have finished on 5th. 4th might be tough call.

      1. The problem i think was the decision of Ferrari to use the DRS after the first stop, that cost them an extra pit stop

        1. Ah that’s the one.

        2. I was gutted when I saw him opening the DRS again. I mean, I just knew it was gonna get stuck. They should have kept it closed and just try it the last lap of the stint, before pitting, if there were any cars in front. I was praying he won’t try opening it again, but he did. Absolutely gutted. How much more misery can he have? The season has just started.

    2. I think Alonso finished 8th? He could have very well finish a place or two higher. Mercedes and McLaren were slower today yet still Alonso lost battles to Hamilton and Perez today.

  4. Lewis Hamilton again confirmed that he is the ideal choice for the Mercedes team. Four races into the season and he already got a good lead on Nico Rosberg.

    1. yeah he’s had a really good start to the season

    2. To be fair Nico had a couple of mechanicals but this race it was quite interesting to see how Rosberg just faded back with a poor handling car while Hamilton just plugged away and turned up with good points in the end, despite starting 8 places behind. Rosberg may have massively upstaged Hamilton in qualifying but Hamilton surely owned him in the race.

      1. And even the upstaging can at least partially be explained by whatever it was that the gearbox change upset.

  5. Kimi and Massa did wrong with strategy and Alonso’s DRS problem was just silly. still I don’t think anyone had pure pace to challenge Vettel. Congratulations.

    I believe Vettel’s dominance should be one off as last year. Well, It should be.

    1. @eggry
      I don’t think Kimi chose the wrong strategy, if you mean 2 stopping. Going from 8th to 2nd shows it was a good strategy. With a better run in qualifying yesterday he could have battled for the win.

      1. Yeah, i don’t see how a strategy that helped you go from 8th to 2nd is a bad strategy.

      2. @metalilion @solo I believe he pitted too early in 2nd or 3rd pit stop, like Massa’s first one.

  6. Great Drive by Vettel ( I dont like seeing him win races, but he was untouchable today)…
    Kimi, Grosjean, Hamilton and Perez also drove well.. Rosberg disappointed me… from pole to 9th where his team mate finished 5th starting from 9th…Absolutely gutted for Alonso and Massa… I think Alonso would’ve finished second without the DRS issues and the extra pitstop… A great drive by him nonetheless ( I dont expect anything less from him though)…

  7. Apart from Vettel actually making his way to the front quickly and then leading on his own, it was very refreshing to watch a race where drivers raced. Lots of battles all the way down, passing, repassing wheel to wheel bumping stuff. Brilliant. Its what Grand Prix Motor Racing should be about. Not a procession of tyre testers. At last we had a race for the fans and not the sponsors. Wondeful. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

  8. Great job by all the top 5 finishers. Everyone stuck to their strategy and drove well. Specifically good job by Lewis and Vet tel.

    All eyes will be on the upgrades in Europe. While Ferrari and Red Bull for sure will have their upgrades, it is make or break for McLaren and Mercedes.

    A very good finish by the small midfield team Force India. McLaren and Williams must be wondering what are we doing here. Hulkenburg but be wondering why did I leave them !!!!!!

  9. Great drive by Vettel. What a champ, I predicted he’d win, so I can gloat here.
    Rosberg- I think he was not able to hold nerves, he had a good car, what happened there I don’t know.
    Kimi- Superb strategy and control, Lotus did very well, but their pit crews are as drunk as the Iceman sometimes.
    Alonso- Funny because as that DRS thing was happening, we had the on board cam shot on his rear wing and I thought, well that’s either a long DRS straight or Ferrari is cheating, especially when he took the turn with that open. And then a thick Italian accent, “Farnan-do box dis laap”
    David Croft- “Why is that open? Should that be open there?” Lol.

    Good race overall. Very good. Shame about the Ferraris but, oh well.

  10. Great drives from the top 6.
    Impressed with the season of the top 3. Vettel, Kimi, Hamilton are being very consistent.

  11. Great drive from Sebastian Vettel. He race Fernando and Nico at the begining of the race without DRS. That’s what World Champion has doing.

  12. Vettel’s pace was impressive. I followed the race on the timing app and thought that he’d destroy his tires after pulling 2 seconds ahead of the 2 stoppers and a second to Webber. But he managed it perfectly and I think even Alonso’s chances were slim to challenge him today – Vettel’s 1:36 showed how much pace he really had left in the car.

  13. Wow at the Macca interview after the race it’s bordering on being nasty about Perez seriously the corner before they banged wheels it was Buttons fault Brundle agreed.

    1. Goes to show that racing agints each other, most of drivers relationship gets ugly

  14. Ferrari should have just told Alonso to try to open and close his DRS while he was stationary in the pits during his first stop? It would have taken 2-3 seconds top, they would have seen it’s not working and would have told him not to use it anymore. Instead they sent him out to try it out in the middle of the track, just to find out it’s not working and made sure they lost another 20 seconds by stopping again.

    1. MB (@muralibhats)
      22nd April 2013, 9:35

      Exactly my thought.

  15. So since RBR handily beat everyone today, including the two stoppers, and this race had plenty of wheel to wheel action, can we please take the tires for what they are and have faith that these incredible engineers will figure them out just as they did last season

    1. Actually you totally missed the point, having the 2 hardest compounds was what gave us a race where the drivers were actually able to attack from behind and defend from infront.

    2. Basically i don’t get all the moaning from Red Bull since the last few years they handle tyres better than most teams and that included Mclaren and Ferrari.
      The drivers might have a right to hate them since they can push 100% as they say. Especially if you are a fast driver you’ll be frustrated about it.

  16. Yeah, obviously ;)

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