Felipe Massa’s victory rounds off a festival of entertainment

The fifth Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix has been claimed by Brazil’s Felipe Massa, leading home his reigning champion team mate Kimi Räikkönen in a dominant 1-2 performance for Scuderia Ferrari.

Massa’s second successive victory in Bahrain ignites his challenge in the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship and left almost 43,000 spectators cheering a thrilling end to an all-action weekend.

Massa launched himself off his second place on the grid to beat pole position man, Poland’s Robert Kubica in his BMW Sauber, into Turn 1 to claim a lead that he never ceded. Two laps later Finnish star Räikkönen repeated the move on Kubica into Turn 1, while the second BMW of Nick Heidfeld passed the McLaren-Mercedes of Heikki Kovalainen, to set a pattern of Ferrari-Ferrari-BMW-BMW that was not to alter for the rest of the race.