Hamilton Goes Back-to-Back
For the second consecutive race Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes 1-2 as he and his teammate Nico Rosberg pulled away from the rest of the field and had their own battle over the 57 lap Bahrain Grand Prix. It is Hamilton's 24th Grand Prix victory as he ties Juan Manuel Fangio for tenth all-time.
Sergio Pérez finished third, handing Force India their second podium in team history and first since Giancarlo Fisichella finished second in the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix. Daniel Ricciardo put pressure on the Mexican but had to settle for fourth. Nico Hülkenberg rounded out the top five just ahead of fellow German Sebastian Vettel.
Felipe Massa finished seventh ahead of Williams teammate Valterri Bottas and Fernando Alonso finished ninth just ahead of Ferrari teammate Kimi Räikkönen.
Rosberg's championship lead is down to eleven points over Hamilton. Hülkenberg moves to third in the championship with 28 points. Alonso is fourth with 26 points. Vettel and Jenson Button are tied for fifth with 23 points with tiebreaker to Button. Kevin Magnussen has 20 points. Both he and Button's raced end early. Bottas has 18 points with Pérez up to 16 after his podium and after two scoreless weekends, Daniel Ricciardo finally has points, 12 of them and enough to be tenth in the championship.
Massa also has 12 points but Ricciardo owns the tiebreaker. Kimi Räikkönen has seven points with Jean-Éric Vergne and Daniil Kvyat rounding out the standings on four and three points respectively.
Mercedes is pulling away in the Constructors' championship. They have 111 points while Force India is second with 44. McLaren is a point behind Force India in third. Red Bull has 35 points, two ahead of Ferrari and five ahead of Williams. Scuderia Toro Rosso has 7 points. Lotus, Sauber, Marussia and Caterham have yet to score.
Formula One's next race is in a fortnight on April 20th, Easter Sunday when the teams head to Shanghai for the Chinese Grand Prix.
Ogier Wins Rally de Portugal
Sébastien Ogier picked up his third victory of the 2014 World Rally Championship season in Portugal by 43.2 seconds over MSport Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen. Ogier won the final power stage and picked up the three bonus points. Mads Østberg finished third, a minute and twelve seconds back of Ogier. Østberg finished third on the power stage picking up one bonus point. Andreas Mikkelsen and Henning Solberg made it three Norwegians in the top five.
Martin Prokop finished sixth ahead of the Hyundais of Thierry Neuville and Juho Hänninen. WRC2 drivers Nasser Al-Attiyah and Jari Ketomaa rounded out the top ten.
Jari-Matti Latvala won stage fourteen and finished second on the power stage, picking up two bonus points. Latvala finished fourteenth overall.
Dani Sordo crashed out while fourth overall. The Spaniard won two stages on day two.
Ogier has 91 points and leads Volkswagen teammate Latvala by 29 points. Østberg is in third, 43 points back. Mikkelsen makes it three Volkswagens in the top four and two Norwegians. He is 55 back of Ogier. Hirvonen is fifth, 55 points back but loses the tiebreaker to Mikkelsen on more seventh-place finishes. Neuville moves up to sixth with 23 points ahead of Elfyn Evans who failed to score in Portugal and stays on 20 points.
The next round of the World Rally Championship will be Rally Argentina May 8-11th.
Winterbottom Wins Winton
Ford's Mark Winterbottom won the third V8 Supercars race from Winton Motor Raceway, winning by over nine seconds over Holden driver James Courtney. Fellow Holden drivers Tim Slade and Jason Bright finished third and fourth. Ford's David Reynolds rounded out the top five.
Winterbottom's teammate Chaz Mostert finished sixth ahead of championship leader Craig Lowndes. The Nissans of Michael Caruso and James Moffat finished eighth and ninth with defending V8SC champion Jamie Whincup rounding out the top ten.
Winton Race one winner Fabian Coulthard finished eleventh ahead of runner-up from race one Shane van Gisbergen. The Nissans of Todd and Rick Kelly finished thirteenth and fourteenth with Winton race two winner, Mercedes-Benz driver Lee Holdsworth rounding out the top fifteen. Scott McLaughlin won Volvo it's first V8SC pole for the third Winton race but finished sixteenth.
Lowndes' championship lead is down to 28 points as Winterbottom moves up to second with his victory at Winton. Coulthard is 43 points back in third. Courtney is fourth, 92 points back and Whincup rounds out the top five, 95 points back of his teammate. Van Gisbergen is 152 points back in sixth with Slade in seventh, 228 points back. Reynolds is 20 points behind Slade in eighth. Holdsworth is ninth, 261 points back with McLaughlin 295 points back of Lowndes and rounding out the top ten.
The next round of the 2014 V8 Supercar season takes place in New Zealand at Pukekohe Park Raceway April 25-27th.
Palmer Wins, Leaves Bahrain With GP2 Points Lead
Jolyon Palmer won from sixth on the grid in the GP2 sprint race and swept the fastest lap bonus points. In doing so the DAMS driver leaves Bahrain with 38 points and the GP2 championship lead. Swiss driver Simon Trummer started second and finished second while Colombia Julián Leal made it two podiums on the weekend by finishing third.
Felipe Nasr and Stéphane Richelmi rounded out the top five. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs finished sixth with Mitch Evans and René Binder rounding out the points.
Race one winner Stoffel Vandoorne had contact front wing damage derail his chances in race two and finished twenty-second. Americans Alexander Rossi and Conor Daly had disastrous days as Rossi had an early tire puncture drop him to 25th and Conor Daly was the lone retirement of race two.
Palmer leads Leal by ten points with Vandoorne in third, 13 back of the Brit. Trummer is 20 points back in fourth while Nasr and Stefano Coletti are tied with 12 points but Nasr holds in the tiebreaker. Arthur Pic and Takuya Izawa scored in race one only and are seventh and eighth in the championship, 28 and 30 points back of Palmer respectively. Richelmi and Quaife-Hobbs round out the top ten with six and five points respectively. Binder has three points and Evans has two.
DAMS leads the team championship with 44 points to Carlin's 40. ART has 33, Rapax has 23, Racing Engineering has 12, Campos 10, Arden 3 and RT Russian Time has 2.
GP2 joins Formula One at the Spanish Grand Prix weekend May 9-11th.
