Alonso claims early lead
Fernando Alonso claimed the early lead of the Bahrain Grand Prix in scorching desert heat at Sakhir today.
In temperatures of 42 degrees, Alonso started from pole position after retaining his overnight qualifying advantage and made a clean getaway to lead into turn one.
World champion Michael Schumacher was his closest challenger, with his Ferrari sporting a black nose cone as a mark of respect for the late Pope John Paul II, who died last night.
Toyota’s Jarno Trulli was third after lap one with Mark Webber fourth and Williams team-mate Nick Heidfeld fifth.
Jenson Button began the race in 11th as BAR-Honda’s struggles continue and he made progress to sit 10th at the end of the first lap. Fellow Briton David Coulthard was also at the wrong end of the grid but he struggled and dropped to 16th.
Rubens Barrichello started from the back of the grid after changing his Ferrari engine following serious reliability problems on his new car. The Brazilian fought his way up to 11th.
Christian Klien could not convince his Red Bull to leave the grid for the formation lap and retired.
Giancarlo Fisichella suffered a disastrous start to the race with his Renault engine smoking badly on lap three as the Italian lost places rapidly before pulling into the pits to retire two laps later.
At the front, Schumacher was glued to the rear of Alonso’s Renault as Narain Karthikeyan retired his Jordan.
Schumacher set the fastest lap of the race on lap six to step up his challenge but behind him Button’s challenge was fading. The BAR driver was cut adrift in 11th after team-mate Takuma Sato scraped past.
Toyota’s Ralf Schumacher, after stealing the show in second qualifying to move up five places, moved alongside Heidfeld on lap eight but his fellow German clung on to fifth spot. Schumacher made the move stick a lap later though when Heidfeld ran wide.
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