Lewis Hamilton emerged on top in a riveting race-long duel with team-mate Nico Rosberg in an epic Bahrain GP to claim back-to-back wins as the gloves came off for the first time between the two championship favourites and F1 2014 definitively came alive.
On the day the team's President Luca di Montezemolo arrived in the paddock to air his grievances over the sport's new era, the result provided more depressing evidence for the Scuderia that its a formula they are a long way from mastering. The same, to an even greater extent, goes for the point-less Lotus and Sauber teams and their respective drivers Pastor Maldonado and Esteban Gutierrez were involved in the explosive race's most dramatic moment, which triggered the late Safety Car. Exiting the pits but reaching the Turn One braking point at the same time as Gutierrez, Maldonado slammed into the side of the Sauber with the car flipping over before coming to rest top-side up in the run-off area. While the crash did serious damage to the C33 chassis, Gutierrez clambered out of the car while Maldonado hit hard by the stewards with the triple whammy of in-race stop/go penalty, three penalty points on his licence and five-place grid drop for the next race in China. McLaren, meanwhile, suffered a highly rare double retirement - their first since the 2006 U.S. GP - after Jenson Button, on his 250th GP start, and Kevin Magnussen both dropped out inside the final 15 laps with clutch problems.