Sebastian Vettel beats Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain thriller

Sebastian Vettel beats Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain thriller

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel won a hectic and thrilling (व्यस्त और रोमांचक) Bahrain Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton's hopes were hit by a penalty for gamesmanship.  Mercedes' Hamilton was penalised five seconds for driving slowly on pit entry to hold up Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo.

Serving it at his second and final pit stop, Hamilton rejoined in third place.

Team-mate Valtteri Bottas was ordered to let Hamilton by so he could chase Vettel, but 12 seconds in nine laps was too big a task and he took second.

Vettel's win gives him a seven-point lead over Hamilton in the championship.

vettel

That's Ferrari's second win of the season and 226th in their history. Source: Forix

Full race results from Bahrain GP

'Mercedes face pressure to favour Hamilton over Bottas'

A major battle on the horizon

It was not completely clear who had the quickest car - Ferrari argued it was them; Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said Hamilton was the fastest. And the world champions may well feel this was a race that got away from them.

But the best race of the season, in which all three so far have been good, underlined one key fact - Ferrari are absolutely competitive and they and Mercedes are in a titanic struggle for the championship.

Listen: 'My brakes failed' - Verstappen

Hamilton and Vettel look like the men who will fight it - Bottas is not yet on Hamilton's level and Kimi Raikkonen was again relatively anonymous, a poor start leaving him a long way behind but recovering to take fourth place ahead of Ricciardo.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen may well have been in the fight, too, but crashed out after 11 laps with brake failure.

bahrain

Verstappen climbs out of his car after failed brakes caused him to slide into the gravel trap

How did Vettel beat Hamilton?

It turned on two key moments - an aggressive early pit stop by Ferrari for Vettel; and Hamilton's decision to slow on the way into the pits when the safety car was sent out following a collision between Williams driver Lance Stroll and Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz.

But other issues played a part, too - Hamilton should probably have taken pole but made a mistake at Turn 10 on his final qualifying lap, allowing Bottas to do so for the first time in his career.

And Mercedes, in a very difficult position in only the third race of the year, waited until just short of half-distance to order the slower Bottas to let Hamilton by for the first time.

The combination of those two things left Hamilton with too much to do on a frustrating afternoon on which he and Mercedes were arguably the fastest combination but victory slipped through their fingers.