Bahrain Grand Prix: All eyes on Sebastian Vettel this Sunday

The glare of five thousand spotlights will be squarely trained on Sebastian Vettel in eager anticipation that the German and his resurgent Ferrari team can once again take the fight to reigning champions Mercedes in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix.
Nico Rosberg led Lewi s Hamilton across the line to record Mercedes’ fifth straight one-two finish a fortnight ago in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. But it was a hard-fought victory and not the dominant Sunday afternoon romp the Silver Arrows have become accustomed to.

Vettel crossed the line third but comfortably led a majority of the 57-lap race, despite Melbourne’s Albert Park track being one of Ferrari’s weakest circuits. A bungled tyre gamble cost him the win, however, and the four-time champion is hoping to put up more of a fight under the floodlights in Sunday’s twilight race.

“I think we were a lot closer,” Vettel said following the seasonopener. “Last year this was one of our worst tracks so there’s plenty of positives.

“We had a great race. The team seems in good shape. We know that we can up our game and we want to put pressure on these guys (Mercedes),” he said. Rosberg leads the drivers’ standings fol lowing his win in Australia. Hamilton is second, seven points behind while Vettel is a further three points adrift in third.

Victory in the season-opener was Rosberg’s fourth in a row after he closed out 2015 with a run of three straight wins. The German will be hoping extend that streak in Bahrain and give his season the strongest start it has ever had, in contrast to last year when he struggled to match team-mate Hamilton until after the Briton had clinched the title.

“It was great to win the first race - but the aim is to come out on top at every step of the way this season, starting this weekend,” Rosberg, who has never won in Bahrain, said.

“We've stepped up our game once again with a fantastic car. But Ferrari were a real threat all weekend in Melbourne and it's clear that we've got a big battle on our hands, so we have to keep pushing very hard. There’s a long way to go...”

Reigning world champion Hamilton, meanwhile, will be hunting for his third straight victory, and first of the season, at the Sakhir circuit on the outskirts of capital Manama.

While he should be the favourite for pole given Mercedes’ slight edge over Ferrari in qualifying trim on a ‘power’ track that should play to the strengths of the Silver Arrows, he will be far from taking victory for granted.

Mercedes locked out the front-row for the race in Australia but both silver cars made poor getaways, allowing the Ferrari pair of Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen to vault past into the lead.

Polesitter Hamilton made an especially bad start and fell to sixth, which ultimately dropped him out of contention for the win. “It's always moving, targets are always shifting so it is something for sure. We've been talking, and it's one of our priorities,” Hamilton said of Mercedes’ starts.

“The Ferraris got an incredibly good start, they were very, very strong, so we're going to try and figure out how we can do better.”

F1 will be relying on a hardfought battle between Ferrari and Mercedes to save its blushes with the controversial and universally-maligned elimination qualifying format introduced at the season-opener in Australia remaining in place for another weekend.

The new format, aimed at mixing up grids, instead brought an anti-climactic end to qualifying, widely regarded as among the most exciting phases of the weekend, as the order was decided with four minutes still remaining on the clock.

The new format was slammed by all of the sport’s stakeholders, with Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff calling it “rubbish”, Red Bull team-principal Christian Horner calling for the sport to apologise to its fans and even ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone branding it “crap.”

The teams, drivers, the sport’s governing FIA and commercial rights holder all agreed the new format had to be abandoned. But a lack of unanimity, which is required for immediate rule changes, regarding what format it should be replaced with scuppered any chance an overhaul.

As a result, F1 is bracing itself for another anti-climactic Saturday. “The teams were unanimous in their opinion of it (the new qualifying format) on Sunday in Melbourne and it wasn't a positive opinion,” Wolff said.

“The fans want close racing, in a format they can understand, between the best drivers and cars in the world - in that order. “We haven't found the right format with this change and it's hard to see how it might be more entertaining for the fans this weekend in Bahrain.”



WATCH OUT

Qualifying LIVE on Saturday at 2030 on Star Sports 4 and HD4

Race LIVE on Sunday at 2030 on Star Sports 4 and HD4