Fernando Alonso leads Ferrari one-two in Bahrain

Fernando Alonso led Felipe Massa to a stunning Ferrari one-two after the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel hit trouble at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Alonso trailed the German from the start, but swept by as the Red Bull suffered a spark plug failure.

Massa followed the Spaniard past on the next lap and Lewis Hamilton benefited from Vettel’s problem to take third.

Vettel eventually finished fourth, holding off the Mercedes pair of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher.

On his return after three years in retirement, the seven-time world champion was in better form in the race than he had been in qualifying.

But Schumacher was unable to keep pace with team-mate Rosberg in the early stages of the race and spent the afternoon holding off the faster McLaren of Jenson Button.

The reigning champion finished seventh ahead of Red Bull’s Mark Webber, with the Force India of Vitantonio Liuzzi and Rubens Barrichello’s Williams taking the final points under the new scoring system in ninth and 10th.

On the evidence of this race, Button faces a tough battle to hold on to his crown, with McLaren unable to match the pace of the Ferraris and Red Bulls.

Vettel had taken an impressive pole position on Saturday and appeared to have the race under control as he inched away from Alonso in the early stages of the race.

But eventually the reliability troubles that had blighted the team’s pre-season preparation, and their practice running here on Friday, hit them again. Vettel said: “It’s a pity, but what can you do?

“Overall it’s a positive. We were one of the quickest, we had very good control of the race and were on top of the strategy. “Everything was running smoothly. Luckily we could continue and finish fourth but we should have won, really. “It seemed to kind of recover at the end but it wasn’t great and it cost us a lot. The points are still important.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner admitted: “It’s very annoying, we really had the race comfortably under control there.”

Keep pace

Alonso passed Massa, who started one place ahead of him in second, around the outside of Turn One at the start, but he could not initially keep pace with the Red Bull.

Vettel built up a lead of 5.5 seconds over the Ferrari before his sole pit stop on lap 15, a lap before the double world champion.