F1 2017: Vettel beats the odds and charging Hamilton to win Bahrain Grand Prix

Looking at his deficit in qualifying to Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton and the straight-line speed advantage Mercedes AMG F1 enjoyed, the odds for a Sebastian Vettel didn't look good. That is, until the five red lights at the start went out and the former four-time world champion leapt into action with his Ferrari SF70H, which he couldn't get enough of driving even after scoring the 44th win of his F1 career at Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix.

After storming past Hamilton, Vettel settled behind Bottas who managed to hold on the lead of the race following his first career pole position. But owing to abnormally high tyre pressures the Finn was unable to open any sort of a gap to his pursuers.

FERRARI THINK FAST
Vettel, Hamilton and the Red Bull-Tag Heuers (Renault) of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen all stayed closely bunched behind Bottas until Ferrari decided to not lose any more time behind the struggling Finn and pit the German early enough for him to get the jump on the rest of the drivers later.

The strategy looked to have worked perfectly for Vettel until a safety car came out after Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz Jr. collided and were left stranded on track. Being under a full course caution meant that Vettel had Bottas right behind him again and the Finn made a huge effort to get past Vettel at the restart.

The German used all of his race-craft, however, in order to stay ahead of the Finn and start to build up a lead as Hamilton sat in third, unable to make much of an impression while rueing a stumbling block of his own making.

HAMILTON PENALTY
Prior to his first pit stop, Hamilton had been holding up Daniel Ricciardo and preventing him from passing him but erroneously continued to do so upon the entry of the pit-lane. For doing so, Hamilton was handed a five second time penalty, which meant that he had to wait for five seconds after pitting during his second stop before the Mercedes mechanics could change his car's tyres. And prior to that, he was delayed on his first stop too following a delay in changing his left-front tyre.

After the second round of pit stops; Vettel, Bottas and Hamilton were all on the soft compound tyres that were the preferred choice around the Bahrain International Circuit.

With Vettel building up a huge lead over the Bottas who continued to suffer oversteer, Hamilton started to make up the time lost through the penalty and passed the Finn who allowed him through after which the Briton set about trying to chase down Vettel.

FINAL CHASE
Hamilton was the fastest driver in the closing stages of the race but Vettel was able to control his pace even while lapping cars and held on to win the race by 6.660 seconds.

Bottas was nearly 14 seconds behind Hamilton in third place while Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari, Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull, Felipe Massa of Williams-Mercedes, Sergio Perez of Force India-Mercedes, Romain Grosjean of Haas-Ferrari, Nico Hulkenberg of Renault and Esteban Ocon of Force India-Mercedes completed the top 10.

Vettel and Ferrari retake the lead in the drivers' and constructors' world championship following the win as the F1 season will resume with its fourth round at the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi on the 28 to 30 April weekend.