Fernando Alonso, just like his predecessor Kimi Raikkonen, sped to victory on his debut for Ferrari in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa.

Alonso then began to chase pole position holder Sebastian Vettel, whose lap times got slower and slower until the moment of truth arrived on Lap 34. That was when technical problems hit the Red Bull and the Ferrari dived past in the penultimate corner, to grab a lead it never lost. Felipe Massa had also closed in driving the second Ferrari and passed Vettel at the start of Lap 35.

As Massa consolidated second place, conserving fuel as a temperature problem in the cockpit obliged him to ease back, it was nevertheless a great day for the Scuderia. Vettel came under increasing pressure from Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren, which was a lot more competitive on the harder rubber. Eventually the 2008 world champion moved on to the final podium slot on the 38th lap after overtaking on the main straight.

Vettel almost fell prey to Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes GP, but hung on for fourth ahead of the Silver Arrow. Almost four seconds further back, Michael Schumacher’s return yielded a hard-fought sixth place, pressured all the way by 2009 champion Jenson Button in the other McLaren and Red Bull’s Mark Webber.

Meanwhile, Lotus won the race for the new teams(Kudos for them :D), with Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli placing 15th and 17th respectively.

1 Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
2 Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
3 Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes)
4 Sebastian Vettel (RBR-Renault)
5 Nico Rosberg (Mercedes Benz GP Ltd)
6 Michael Schumacher (Mercedes Benz GP Ltd)
7 Jenson Button (McLaren-Mercedes)
8 Mark Webber (RBR-Renault)
9 Vitantonio Liuzzi (Force India-Mercedes)
10 Rubens Barrichello (Williams-Cosworth)
11 Robert Kubica (Renault)
12 Adrian Sutil (Force India-Mercedes)
13 Jaime Alguersuari (STR-Ferrari)
14 Nico Hulkenberg (Williams-Cosworth)
15 Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus-Cosworth)
16 Sebastien Buemi (STR-Ferrari)
17 Jarno Trulli (Lotus-Cosworth)
Ret Pedro de la Rosa (BMW Sauber-Ferrari)
Ret Bruno Senna (HRT-Cosworth)
Ret Timo Glock (Virgin-Cosworth)
Ret Vitaly Petrov (Renault)
Ret Kamui Kobayashi (BMW Sauber-Ferrari)
Ret Lucas di Grassi (Virgin-Cosworth)
Ret Karun Chandhok (HRT-Cosworth)

Information from FormulaOne.com