F1 Bahrain GP: Hamilton takes win ahead of fighting Raikkonen

Championship leader Lewis Hamilton eased to his third victory of the F1 season in Bahrain on Sunday, despite a late issue with his car’s

Lewis Hamilton won his third race of the F1 season in Bahrain after holding off a late charge by Ferrari and nursing his Mercedes\' brakes. (PIC: Mercedes AMG F1)

Nico Rosberg (number 6) had a spirited drive behind Hamilton while Sebastian Vettel blamed his podium-less outing on a \'failure to find a rhythm\'. (PIC: Mercedes AMG F1)

Kimi Raikkonen scored his first podium finish since the 2013 season after a late race charge that put him in serious contention for victory in Bahrain. (PIC: Ferrari Media)

Valtteri Bottas took a strong fourth place to cap of a strong weekend where he was unencumbered by back problems that plagued him in the first three races. (PIC: Williams Racing)

Championship leader Lewis Hamilton eased to his third victory of the F1 season in Bahrain on Sunday, despite a late issue with his car’s brake-by-wire system.

A similar problem for the sister Mercedes of Nico Rosberg meant the German went wide at the first corner with two laps to go, allowing 2007 F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen to pass through and take second.

Raikkonen had driven excellently for the entire duration of the race, with the middle stint on prime tyres, in particular, putting him in contention of race win. The Finn later chased down the Mercedes by a second a lap on soft compound during the last quarter of the race, before simply running out of laps.

Mercedes, however, would be content with the race win, having trailed Ferrari in race simulations on Friday. Hamilton had developed enough gap at the front of the field not to fall prey to an undercut, while Rosberg showed some feisty skills to overtake Vettel after falling behind him during both pit stop sequences.

Meanwhile, Valtteri Bottas held off Vettel’s Ferrari to take fourth place, despite being on much older rubber. The German was comfortably racing in the top three but ran wide at the final corner while defending from compatriot Rosberg, damaging his front wing in the process. The extra stop so necessitated dropped him down to fifth place.

Daniel Ricciardo’s lonely race came to a climatic end when his Renault engine blew up spectacularly in the run down to the start/finish straight. The Australian, nevertheless was able to cross the line and was classified sixth.

Romain Grosjean confirmed Lotus F1's improvements in pace with an excellent seventh place, to add to his points tally while Sergio Perez made his strategy work to take eighth for Force India F1 at the chequered flag.

Daniil Kvyat recovered from his Q1 exit to salvage two points for Red Bull while Felipe Massa collected the final championship point in 10th. The Brazilian driver had to start the race from pit lane after his Williams stalled on the grid.

McLaren-Honda’s Fernando Alonso came into touching distance of points in 11th on a day his teammate Jenson Button couldn’t even start the race with Energy Recovery System problems on his car's power unit.

Felipe Nasr showed some aggressive overtaking manoeuvres but ultimately finished outside of the points in 12th, ahead of Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg. The German battled through balance issues with his car and would be disappointed not to hold on to his top 10 starting position.

F1 Bahrain Grand Prix - Results(Top 10)