Fernando Alonso leads Ferrari one-two in Bahrain

Hamilton and McLaren had been off the pace in qualifying but appeared much more competitive in the race.

He spent the first stint trapped behind Rosberg but, once past him at the pit stops, the Englishman was able to keep pace with the Ferraris - if not close the 11-second gap.

Massa wants improvements to Ferrari car

Nevertheless, it was an encouraging performance from McLaren after they had been more than a second adrift of Vettel and Massa in qualifying.

“I had quite a good race,” said Hamilton. “But I lost a bit of ground at Turn Four and Rosberg got past me.

“I was held up behind him for the first half of the race - I was much faster but it’s very difficult to follow here while trying to look after your tyres.

“If I was ahead of him I may have been able to follow the train Ferrari were creating. It’s more than we expected this weekend and we need to continue to push to keep up with Ferrari.”
Button, stuck behind Schumacher for much of the race, was unable to show his true pace.

“I caught up with Schumacher but I couldn’t do anything behind him,” Button told BBC Sport.

“I didn’t have enough pace in the middle section to stay with him and have a go at him in the last section.

“The tyres seemed to be holding pretty well - they were better than I thought. It’s a good first race, I’m reasonably happy with that.”

Schumacher matched Rosberg’s pace after their pit stops but he remains a long way from the imperious form he showed as he racked up a record 91 victories in his first stint from 1991-2006.

Lotus won the battle of the new teams by virtue of lasting the race, which the cars of Virgin and Hispania did not.

Timo Glock’s Virgin was leading that private race but he had to retire with gearbox trouble and left Heikki Kovalainen to lead home team-mate Jarno Trulli at the back of the field.