michael@boxofneutrals.com
Our protagonists, Mercedes and Ferrari, are locked in a fierce battle as the sport goes into its pre-European leg break, and while Mercedes is defending its early lead, Ferrari carries with it the momentum of the enthusiastic challenger.
Lewis Hamilton, despite recording his third win of the season, was chased by a reinvigorated Kimi Räikkönen, who fell but a handful of laps short of victory. Nico Rosberg could only manage third, but were it not for a mistake-riddled race on the part of Sebastian Vettel it could have been two Ferrari drivers on the podium.
As incongruent as it sounds to say of the historic scarlet team that it is a newcomer to the championship fight, Ferrari in 2015 has recovered beautifully from years of only pseudo-competitiveness. It turned heads with its stunning victory in Malaysia, but Bahrain confirmed its challenge is real.
“Its rate of development is very impressive,” said Mercedes boss Toto Wolff of the Italian team.
"It has been very impressive over the winter and has been impressive over the last three races, so clearly that is quite a challenge for us.”
Kimi Räikkönen, for whom Ferrari says it’s ready to consider a contract extension beyond the end of the year, earnt his nomination for driver of the race after flawlessly executing his alternative tyre strategy.
“I’m very happy with the team, said the Finn. “I think many people didn’t expect after last year that we would be in this position this early.”
If the Bahrain Grand Prix was intriguing because of Ferrari’s comparable pace to Mercedes, it was doubly so for the resurgence of the two teams’ second drivers, with Räikkönen and Rosberg recording their best races of the season thus far.
For Räikkönen the result was vindication for the three opening rounds in which mistakes in qualifying prevented his solid race day performances from mixing him in with the podium contenders.
In the second Mercedes garage, Nico Rosberg was in dire need of the sort of aggressive performance he put on around the desert circuit.
Brutally beaten by the unstoppable Hamilton over the first three rounds, and all the more dejected after botching his qualifying session and allowing Vettel to beat him to P2, Rosberg’s was a grand prix of feisty overtaking and confidence-building wheel-to-wheel racing.
He may only have taken third place, but Bahrain finally gave the German a foundation upon which he might be able to build a championship challenge.
Moving into the crucial middle stint of the season, the title contest has been blown wide open. Hamilton may continue to lead, but his days of unfettered dominance may be numbered.
The 2015 narrative has side stories, too. Still to be resolved in part two of the Formula One season is Red Bull Racing and Renault’s desperate slide into unreliable ignominy. Daniel Ricciardo’s third engine of his allocation of four blew up spectacularly as he crossed the finish line, making penalties for additional power units a certainty as the season progresses.
Meanwhile there is light in the tunnel for the McLaren-Honda reunion. Though Jenson Button had virtually no running all weekend due to a persistent electrical fault, Fernando Alonso made it through to Q2 on Sunday on merit, and went on to race his way to eleventh.
With Honda due to bring a major engine upgrade to the next round in Barcelona, the glimpses of McLaren performance may turn into sustained bouts of competitiveness.
The 2015 Formula One season is hotting up. Game on, I say.
Formula One continues with the 2015 Spanish Grand Prix on May 8–10.