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Felipe Massa finally joined Formula One's championship hunt by winning his second straight Bahrain Grand Prix.
Massa, who failed to finish the season's opening two races, edged teammate and new overall leader Kimi Raikkonen by 3.339 seconds for his sixth career victory on Sunday.
"I like the place, the track, the people - I'm always very welcome here - so it's very nice to have the second victory in a row and my first points," Massa said.
Massa went inside of polesitter Robert Kubica at the first turn. Raikkonen followed by overtaking the Polish driver around the outside one lap later to set up the Italian team
1-2.
"Once I had consolidated my position, I managed the situation trying not to push the car too much, knowing how important it is to always bring home the points," said world champion Raikkonen, who stood on the podium for the 50th time. "It was a difficult weekend, so second is a good outcome."
Massa badly needed to win at Bahrain. The 26-year-old from Sao Paulo spun out at Sepang two weeks ago after starting from pole. He retired after an accident at the season-opening Australian GP. And the Brazilian driver's position at Ferrari came under closer scrutiny since he was a championship favorite coming in.
Massa looked determined all weekend and dominated practice at the Bahrain International Circuit.
"I had a lot of time to think about what happened in the last race. That's pretty normal," Massa said. "But I am sure now it's in the past and what is in the past is one victory and that will help for the next race."
After taking Bahrain last year, Massa went on to win at Barcelona. That's where the F1 circus lands next, the European season getting under way with the Spanish GP on April 27.
Ferrari's one-point weekend at Melbourne can be forgotten after a second straight victory. Raikkonen won at Sepang and leads the championship with 19 points - three more than BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld.
Kubica recovered from the demoralising start - which included running through oil and debris - to lead teammate Heidfeld as BMW Sauber finished third and fourth. "We made mistakes but we still finished third, so I think it's a great result," said Kubica, who followed up a second-place finish at Sepang with his third career podium.
The German team moved top of the constructors' championship with 30 points, leading McLaren by one, and Ferrari by two.
Ferrari's main rival will be forgetting about Bahrain quickly. Heikki Kovalainen showed McLaren's car had the pace after the Finn raced through the final two circuit sections quickest to set the day's fastest lap time at 1 minute, 31.193 seconds. Kovalainen managed to finish where he started - fifth - for the team's only points.
Teammate Lewis Hamilton, who started third, had a second accident in two days for his worst placing in a 20-race career: 13th. "The race was a disaster," Hamilton said. "The whole weekend has not been ideal."
Hamilton, who opened the season with a win at Melbourne, stalled out of the start to drop to 10th and then tried to make up the deficit quickly with the Ferraris out front.
The Briton tried to get past former teammate Fernando Alonso but instead went up over the back of the Spaniard's Renault to lose his front wing. Hamilton crashed in Friday's
practice, severely damaging the right side of his car.
"I have had such a good run in Formula One until now, and it was almost inevitable that at some point things would go wrong," Hamilton said. "However, there is a long way to
go in the championship and I intend to win it."
A year ago, Hamilton made history by becoming the first rookie to podium in his first three races. Now he's gone two straight races without a podium and four of five stretching back to last season. Hamilton, Kovalainen and Kubica share third in the drivers' standings with 14 points each.
Jarno Trulli of Toyota, Mark Webber of Red Bull and Nico Rosberg of Williams filled out the top eight to collect the remaining points. Two-time world champion Alonso finished outside the points in 10th behind Toyota's Timo Glock.
