The remorseless pace and reliability of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa destroyed the hopes of Sebastian Vettel in his fast but fragile Red Bull as the 2010 Formula One season opened in Bahrain with a 1-2 finish for Ferrari.
Welcome to the first race of the 2010 Formula One season. And it should be an interesting one.
Sebastian Vettel has thrown down the gauntlet to four world champions with his thrilling curtain-raiser at the Sakhir Circuit in Bahrain today, after parking his Red Bull neatly on pole and challenging the rest of the field to catch him – if they can.
Friday practice in Bahrain taught little about the prospects of the 12 F1 teams that will take to the grid on Sunday as mechanical problems kept some drivers off the track for all or most of the day, while others were testing different strategies that could not be directly compared.
Following the racing this weekend? Here’s all you need to know.
In Bahrain we picked up 28 places as a result of all of our drivers finishiing the race, as well as occupying the top four spots. But we were far from the only people who started the main season feeling that Button, Vettel and Trulli would shine.
Jenson Button shrugged off fears that the field had caught up with Brawn GP’s early-season pace to take a confident win at the Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of Sebastian Vettel and polesitter Jarno Trulli.
While we can probably expect good weather for today’s Bahrain Grand Prix, no-one is entirely discounting sandstorms, of the kind that wrecked testing at the circuit earlier in the year.
Toyota will try to become the third team this season to take its debut victory with a 1-2 finish after Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock secured the front row in qualifying for tomorrow’s Bahrain Grand Prix.
Anyone watching qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix was advised to do so on an empty stomach – or risk extreme nausea from all the hype about the facilities and the hero-worship of the region’s money.