Hamilton also finished second to Vettel in the Australian opener, before winning in China, and he said that defeat had not been due to any "massive fault of my own" but rather due to heavy tyre wear.
The German had started third on the grid but a flawless drive and the ideal strategy calls led to him taking the chequered flag six seconds ahead of Hamilton, who finished second in the desert. "Yes guys, that's what I'm talking about", whooped the German, who was helped by the safety vehicle being deployed after his first pitstop with the Mercedes duo still out, as he took the chequered flag.
"Supposed to have a five-second gap and I think I had a four-second gap".
The Briton served the penalty at his second stop, frustration evident from his shaking helmet, before charging back and taking more than one second a lap out of Vettel's advantage before running out of time. Then you see what we did in the race. He then pitted from the lead to take Soft tires on Lap 10, getting the undercut on Bottas and Hamilton and reentering in 12th.
Daniel Ricciardo "genuinely thought" Red Bull had a chance to win the Bahrain Grand Prix in the early stages as he and teammate Max Verstappen stalked the leaders. The Mexican has earned points in 13 races in a row, the best current run in F1.
Romain Grosjean battled through to take eighth for Haas ahead of Nico Hulkenberg of Renault and Esteban Ocon in the second Force India.
For one, he has just a one-year contract to drive for the team plus there is no shortage of drivers queuing up to replace him - McLaren's Fernando Alonso arguably being at the front of that queue after his third race retirement out of three in 2017. "I think they will be very quick in the next race but there's a lot of straights there as well and we've obviously got, I think, still the strongest power unit on the grid, so I think that will come into play, for sure".
While Vettel was on song from the beginning, passing Hamilton into the opening turn as the Brit bogged down on the start it was a case of the German's team making the call to pit early that gave him the lead.
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"Obviously a very hard race out there", said Hamilton.
But other issues played a part, too.
It was the third grand slam of Hamilton's career insofar as the Stevenage-born racer landing pole position, the win, registering the fastest lap and leading every lap. Exclusively my fault. Then the time lost in the pitlane.
In fact, Bottas was twice asked to pull over for Hamilton but, despite an initial protestation, the Finnish driver did the right thing for the team and yielded to his team-mate.
A slow pit stop for Bottas made matters even worse for Mercedes.
In the meantime, Lewis Hamilton had illegally backed up Daniel Ricciardo (someone who, it turned out, was not in the podium fight) entering the pitlane and incurred a 5s penalty. Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) 00:20.397; 4.
Kimi Raikkonen finished fourth in his Ferrari, while Massa was sixth in his WIlliams.
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