Nico Rosberg wrapped up another issue free race as he won the Bahrain Grand Prix without having to break into a sweat. It wasn’t that way during Saturday’s qualifying session where Rosberg had to settle for second after his team mate, Lewis Hamilton, secured pole position. However Sunday is where it counts and for the second time in a row Hamilton stuttered off the line as the race began. Hamilton’s poor getaway allowed Rosberg to scramble into the lead and going into the first corner Hamilton had all but settled for second. That is until the Williams of Valtteri Bottas decided he also wanted second place. Braking from at least two cars lengths behind Hamilton Bottas clumsily tried an inside overtake. But the tight right hander is almost like a chicane and with no where else to go Bottas carried his momentum into the side of Hamilton. The collision could have been race over for Hamilton however both Bottas and Hamilton continued but Hamilton dropped down to 9th. Both the Williams and Mercedes suffered damage but were still able to continue. One person who did suffer race ending damage was the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel who didn’t even make it past the formation lap. The Ferrari’s engine went up in a cloud of smoke, fortunately his team mate Raikkonen started 4th. Unfortunately a bad start meant that he dropped down the order though ultimately he fought his way back up to 2nd by lap 10 and there he would remain throughout the race fast but not quite fast enough to challenge Rosberg. Meanwhile Hamilton was struggling with a damaged car but had enough pace to eventually take 3rd place albeit a distant 3rd from Raikkonen. It was yet another save for Hamilton who will know any points gained in the early part of the season is better than no points at all. Behind the leading trio was a race full of incident and overtaking. Daniel Ricciardo finished 4th for Red Bull while drive of the day belonged to Romain Grosjean who scored an unexpected 5th place for new team Hass. For Hass Racing 5th place is like a scoring a victory, thanks to Ferrari input it seems like Grosjean’s decision to leave what is now the Renault team is paying off big time. That can be evidenced by the fact that Renault were lapped and finished 11th. Both the Williams cars seemed to have a bright start but even with Mercedes engine power both Massa and Bottas slipped down the order and were eventually lapped. McLaren suffered a DNF for Button and although Fernando Alonso was sidelined through injury after his crash in Australia his temporary replacement Stoffel Vandoorne finished a credible 10th. For McLaren Honda that’s a very encouraging result. For Nico Rosberg victory in Bahrain meant his fifth consecutive race win. Perhaps we were all denied an epic battle with the two Mercedes team mates. Rosberg won’t always have it his own way and Hamilton will be determined to notch his first victory of the season. The 2016 F1 season is long, 22 races in total, there is still a long way to go and a lot can still happen, the story is still being written. RACE RESULT