Massa's Ferrari got off to a perfect start and managed to hang on to his 1st position after the first corner, as McLaren's sensation Lewis Hamilton followed him in second place. Kimi Räikkönen had another poor start and lost a place to title rival Fernando Alonso, while the two BMWs in the back – Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica – maintained 5th and 6th after the first corner. In the back, it was still Honda to disappoint the fans. Jenson Button collided with Scott Speed and had to call it a day, forcing the safety car to cool things down for the first time this season.
In front of the race, it was pretty clear that Ferrari and McLaren were to battle for the win. As Massa had a promise to keep, the Brazilian soon stormed into the lead and clinched the first fastest lap of the race (1:35.4 on Lap 7). Hamilton kept close and out-bettered the Brazilian in the time standings, managing a sensational 1:35.137 on Lap 9. The two separated from Alonso and Räikkönen, making sure that the first pit stops would not affect their position in the race. Raikkonen, on the other hand, was clearly faster that Alonso but had to wait for the first pit stop to take 3rd place. Nick Heidfeld maintained visual contact with the pair, as teammate Kubica had to put in a serious fight for 6th place – as he was closely followed by Giancarlo Fisichella and Mark Webber.
Red Bull's David Coulthard soon became the “hit of the day”, as he managed to recover 8 places into the race after only 7 laps. More, the Scottish driver overtook Williams' Alexander Wurz only on Lap 16 and climbed all the way into 11th before the first pit stops.
Hamilton pitted the first from the front pack, as he was was soon followed by Massa and Alonso. Räikkönen's only chance of catching up with the leading duo was to re-enter the race before the Spaniard and his team gave him a decisive push. The Finn managed to out-better his McLaren rival at the pits and clinched 3rd place on Lap 22. It proved to be the only notable change of the leading pack, as the four drivers were followed by Heidfeld, Kubica and Fisichella by lap 25. That's where's when the race started to become interesting though. German Nick Heidfeld started to close the gap on Alonso when entering the second half of the race and the 2-time world champion had no response whatsoever. And the obvious happened on Lap 32, when the BMW driver overtook Alonso and looked set to take his third 4th place in a row this season. In the back, David Coulthard managed to get pass Heikki Kovalainen and clinched a sensational 7th place with almost half of race to go.
Massa and Raikkonen went in before the McLaren drivers, hoping that the Finn would overtake Hamilton for 2nd and give Ferrari it's first 1-2 this season. It wasn't to be, though, since Hamilton made a perfect pit stop and entered the race a few seconds before Räikkönen. At that point, both Massa and his teammate decided not to rick anything, therefore allowing Hamilton to close the gap on the Brazilian and leave Räikkönen far behind. Heidfeld maintained 4th place after the last pit stop and Alonso had to settle for a disappointing 5th place – first time outside the podium this season.
Massa risked nothing in front of the race and won the Bahrain GP far more dominant that the victory margin shows (only 2.3 seconds in front of Hamilton), closing the gap on the his 3 title rivals in the Point Standings.
“A great result and it's nice that we now have a long break during which I can enjoy thinking about it! The team did a great job today in terms of the strategy and the car set-up and everything else. But I will dedicate this win to my girlfriend Raffaela who has had to be very patient with me this weekend! The championship is very close now so these are ten very important points”, said an overwhelmed Massa after the race.
Rookie Lewis Hamilton, who clinched his 3rd podium in 3 races for McLaren, also seemed very content with his result: “I’m very pleased with today’s result. To have finished on the podium three times out of three is fantastic. We have definitely closed the gap to Ferrari and I know everybody will continue to push hard to improve even more in time for the Spanish Grand Prix. I really enjoyed the race today and with a few more laps I might have been able to challenge Felipe for the lead”.
Kimi Räikkönen admitted, despite his 3rd podium performance this season, that the Bahrain weekend left him wanting for more on the weeks to come: “I am happy with these six points, but I can't be completely satisfied with this result. At the start, I think I made a small mistake but I was still in a position where I could try and overtake Lewis, but in the end I lost a place to Alonso and spent all of the first stint right behind him, with no chance of getting by. We now have to work on improving our performance”.
Despite managing a poor 5th place into the race, Fernando Alonso tried to stay positive after the Bahrain GP: “In a way I feel happy as we came away with four points and still leading the championship which is what is important. This was not a great race for me but these things happen. I was struggling for pace and overall grip which means that you can’t drive the car as well as you would like. We now look forward to the next couple of weeks where we will all work hard to further improve the car in time for my home Grand Prix in Barcelona”.
Nick Heidfeld managed to clinch another 4th place this season and, for the moment, seems to be the only driver to play an interesting part in the title race. The German burst with enthusiasm at the end of the race: “I feel fantastic. Currently I have a good car, a good team, I can drive good races and I really enjoy this. For the team it is extremely important that both cars finished the race and scored points. I think here we were even stronger than in Malaysia, which is surprising as our car has not changed in the past week. Obviously the track suited us and I had a very good set-up”.
In the Point Standings, Kimi Räikkönen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton are all leading the championship on 22 points, while Brazilian Felipe Massa closed the gap to only 5 points (17 pts overall) after the Bahrain weekend. Ferrari was, no doubt about it, the winner of the day, since the Scuderia managed to put both its driver on the podium and close the gap on McLaren to only 5 points (44 – McLaren, 39 – Ferrari).
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