Rival's victory

The spotlight might have been on Michael Schumacher's return to Formula One and his new Mercedes GP team, but it was Schumi's former employer Ferrari that took the spoils at the first race in Bahrain.

Schumacher's old adversary Fernando Alonso - making his debut for the Scuderia - came in first, with his teammate Felipe Massa second. Massa was making a comeback of his own, after sustaining serious head and eye injuries in a freak accident midway through last season, which sidelined him for the rest of the year.

2008 World Champion Lewis Hamilton rounded out the podium for McLaren Mercedes.

Fourth-placed Sebastian Vettel looked like the winner for most of the race, having led from pole position. But in the closing stages he radioed in to the pits with the message, "there's a loss of power, loss of power."

A mechanical problem was to blame, and Vettel dropped down the order. The 22-year-old even got back in touch with the garage later to ask if the mechanics could fix the problem on their computers, but he didn't get the answer he wanted to hear.

"For me it was noticeable that there was no juice back there," Vettel told reporters, expalining he didn't yet know what had gone wrong with the car.

"Fourth place is great damage limitation, until then the race was perfect. We had managed our tires better than the others, Fernando [Alonso, then in second place] was attacking, but I think we had him under control."

Mercedes off the pace

But Vettel just managed to keep the rather disappointing "Silver Arrows" at bay.

The Mercedes GP duo Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher claimed fifth and sixth places, respectively, with Rosberg glued to Vettel's gearbox by the end.

As Schumacher had predicted in pre-season testing, the Mercedes car was close to the top teams' pace, but couldn't keep up over race distance. Both Rosberg and Schumacher's best efforts in the race were over a second shy of the fastest lap set by Alonso.

"Red Bull and Ferrari definitely have the advantage right now," Schumacher told German television reporters after the race. "But that's roughly what we expected pre-season, we have a lot of work to do to get to the front. But it's not impossible."

Reigning champion Jenson Button came in seventh for McLaren Mercedes, Red Bull's Mark Webber had a frustrating day back in eighth, Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi grabbed an impressive ninth, and Williams veteran Rubens Barrichello scored the last available points in tenth.

Disappointing day

Vettel's mechanical issues and Mercedes' missing pace was but the tip of the iceberg, as German drivers struggled lower down the field as well.

Adrian Sutil, starting a promising 10th for Force India, spun on the first lap, and had to fight his way through the field from the back. He only managed 12th in the end.

Debutant Nico Hulkenberg lost control of his Williams at the tricky turns six and seven early in the race; he was doomed to a similar fate to Sutil, finishing 14th.

And Virgin Racing's Timo Glock - one of the drivers brave enough to go to work for one of the three struggling new teams - only made it half way through the race before retiring. Only two of the six new entrants - the two Lotus cars - made it to the checkered flag.

Author: Mark Hallam
Editor: Andreas Illmer