Felipe Massa answered his critics in the place where it mattered most: the race track. After two error filled GP’s, there was some speculation that Ferrari was thinking about dropping the Brazilian from their line-up in favor of Fernando Alonso. But Massa bounced back with a dominant display to win a second successive Bahrain GP: his sixth victory overall. Starting from second on the grid, Massa capitalized on a relatively slow start from pole-sitter Kubica to take first position. From that point onwards, it was all academic as Massa never looked back.
Kimi Raikkonen was always plagued with problems in his previous Bahrain GP’s. The reigning champion’s lack of enthusiasm for the track was no secret. But despite his halfhearted sentiments for the Bahrain GP, he still managed to squeeze out a second place finish capping a dominating race weekend for Scuderia Ferrari.
Raikkonen’s eight points for the race was enough to vault him into first in the drivers’ standings thanks largely to a problem-filled run from McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton who stumbled in 13th place: one lap down from the race leaders.
Starting from third on the grid, Hamilton dropped all the way down to tenth position even before turn one as he was inexplicably slow off the line. To make matters worse, Hamilton clobbered the rear wing of Alonso’s Renault the following lap. The McLaren’s front wing was shredded in the process, forcing Hamilton to crawl back into the pits effectively ruining any chances of a significant comeback.
As horrible as the day was for Lewis Hamilton, the opposite could be said for Robert Kubica, Nick Heidfeld and BMW-Sauber. For the second consecutive race, Kubica secured another podium by finishing third. With teammate Nick Heidfeld taking fourth, BMW-Sauber has found itself sitting on top of the constructors’ standings with 30 points: ahead of Ferrari’s 29 and McLaren’s 28. Nick Heidfeld, on the other hand, now sits second in the drivers' standaings ahead of Hamilton who dropped to third.
Heikki Kovalainen’s fifth place finish, 30 seconds behind the race winner, capped what was a truly a forgettable race for McLaren. The Woking based team will have some serious work ahead of them as they try to figure out why they have fallen significantly off the pace compared to their rivals in just after two races.
Jarno Trulli put in another solid performance securing sixth for Toyota. With a fourth place finish in the last GP, Trulli’s effort is highlighting the team’s improving consistency and reliability.
Mark Webber tallied two points with a seventh place finish in his Red Bull Renault while Nico Rosberg rounded up the last scoring position for Williams-Toyota in eighth.
