Hamilton, Vettel and Bottas

Vettel beat Hamilton to win Bahrain Grand Prix Thriller

Hamilton, Vettel and Bottas
Hamilton, Vettel and Bottas

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel beat Lewis Hamilton to win the thrilling F1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix and gave him a seven-point lead over Hamilton, in the F1 Championships. Mercede’s Hamilton was penalized five seconds for driving slowly on pit entry to hold up Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.

Team-mate Valtteri Bottas was ordered to let Hamilton pass by so he could chase Vettel, but 12 seconds in nine laps was too big a job to beat Sebastian. Kimi Raikkonen with a poor start left him behind but recovered to take the fourth place ahead of Ricciardo. Red Bull\s Max Verstappen crashed out after 11 laps with brake failure.

Mercedes still lead the constructors’ stakes with 109points to Ferrari’s 100, with Red Bull on 47 ahead of Force India on 17, Williams on 16 and Toro Rosso on 12, Hass on 8 and Renault on 2.

Vettel now has five race wins for Ferrari, level with Gerhard Berger.

No Driver Team Points Time Avg. mph
1 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 25 !:33;53:374 196.979
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 18 +6.660sec 196.746
3 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 15 +20.397sec 196.268
4 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 12 +22.475sec 196.196
5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 10 +39.346sec 195.612
6 Felipe Massa Williams 8 +54.326sec
7 Sergio Perez Force India 6 +62.606sec
8 Romain Grosjean HAAS 4 +74.865sec
9 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 2 +80.188sec
10 Esteban Ocon Force India 1 +95.711sec