Scuderia Ferrari’s response to the challenge

When Rosberg said “Game on Ferrari” he did not expect this. By Jerrica Leong

Scuderia Ferrari’s team principle Maurizio Arrivabene is one passionate person indeed. The first time Arrivabene cheering his drivers on with such passion was in the Chinese GP and again we see his exaggerated hand gestures and fierce face during the Bahrain GP when Kimi Raikkonen pulled an overtaking move on Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg as the five lights went out.

I’m sure that gesture was mimicked by Tifosi across the world as they cheered for the Iceman. We definitely saw the return of the Flying Finn in Sakhir last night. Even though Rosberg had retaliated after a few laps behind the scarlet car, it did not stop Raikkonen from chasing down the leaders.

A quick change in strategy had seen Raikkonen coming out of his first pitstop on the Prime tyres. This gave the Iceman the momentum to set flying lap after flying lap to chase down his team mate Sebastian Vettel for P3. Although Ferrari had been criticised for leaving Raikkonen out on his second stint too long that Hamilton had had the chance to snatch the lead back from him Raikkonen had returned to the track with a vengeance.

Rosberg had been struggling with a brake-by-wire problem the entire race and that saw him run wide at Turn 1 allowing Raikkonen to close-up and drive pass him on tyres that are ten laps younger to snatch P2 away.

Sebastian Vettel’s race was the opposite of Raikkonen, although the team reported that Vettel was not suffering from any problems with his car, Vettel was seen running wide twice at Turn 1. The first mistake had cost him P2 where Rosberg had taken advantage. The pit-crew’s successful undercut had not yielded the desired result as Vettel had run wide a third time and damaged his front wing. A long pit-stop was required to change the front wing and that saw the German rejoin in fifth place, behind the Williams of Valtteri Bottas. Try as he might, Vettel just cannot get close enough on the straights for DRS to work to overtake Bottas.

There was joy on Raikkonen’s camp but disappointment from Vettel’s side of the garage, but the Scuderia Ferrari team are happy with the results at the end of the night. Vettel’s fifth place had seen him drop a place in the Driver’s championship but Ferrari remains strong on second in the Constructor’s championship.