Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel secured his second victory of the 2017 Formula 1 season, beating Mercedes racer Lewis Hamilton during a tense strategic scrap at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Vettel moved up to second place at the start, passing Hamilton around the outside of Turn 1, with polesitter Valtteri Bottas holding onto the lead in the early stages.
Ferrari opted to pit Vettel before his rivals and it proved to be well-timed, taking place just prior to the safety car being deployed to clear Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz’s damaged cars after they clashed at Turn 1.
Bottas dived into the pits, with Hamilton backing up Daniel Riccardo so he could also stop for fresh tyres, giving Vettel the lead when the race restarted.
From there, Vettel was able to establish a comfortable advantage, with Bottas struggling and eventually falling behind Hamilton before an early second stop.
Vettel pitted a few laps later, with Hamilton going longer on his middle stint and having to serve a five-second time penalty for backing up Ricciardo at his first stop.
This allowed Vettel to extend his lead further through the second pitstop phase, with Bottas briefly moving up to second before being displaced by a charging Hamilton.
Vettel crossed the line to take his second win of the season and third win in Bahrain, with Hamilton second and Bottas in third.
Kimi Raikkonen came home close behind in fourth, with Ricciardo fifth in the sole Red Bull to finish – Max Verstappen having crashed out with brake failure just before the safety car period for the Stroll/Sainz clasg.
Felipe Massa ran as high as fourth but slipped to sixth as the race progressed, with Sergio Perez, Romain Grosjean, Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon completing the top 10.
Pascal Wehrlein, Daniil Kvyat and Jolyon Palmer were next up as Fernando Alonso battled towards the lower end of the midfield but pulled into the garage late on with a power unit issue. Marcus Ericsson, Sainz, Stroll and Verstappen also failed to finish.
Kevin Magnussen retired early on for Haas with an issue, pulling off track at Turn 8. Meanwhile, the second McLaren of Stoffel Vandoorne failed to make the race start due to a power unit problem.
