Strategy played an important role in deciding the outcome of the Bahrain Grand Prix, not as much as it did a week ago in China, but it certainly played an important role. 3 stops were preferred by the most in conditions where thermal tyre degradation was a major problem. 

Sebastian Vettel dominated the proceedings on a three stop strategy, however the fight for the next three spots between Raikkonen, Grosjean and Di Resta was quite close. In the end, the Lotus pair denied Di Resta his maiden podium finish. In this article, we analyse how Raikkonen and Grosjean, who started down the field made their way up the grid on different strategies and beat Force India's Paul di Resta for final two spots on the podium. 

Sebastian Vettel was untouched at Bahrain as he took his 28th victory of the season. The Lotus drivers performed well from their poor gird positions to fill up the top three, while Paul di Resta managed his race beautifully on a two stop strategy but eventually lost a chance to take his maiden podium finish. Sergio Perez showed first sparks of the season as he finished the race in 6th place after a race long battle with teammate Jenson Button. So, who was YOUR driver of the day? Give your opinion in the poll. Those who gave their opinion yesterday on Twitter, will see their tweets at the bottom of the page.

Rosberg puts on a Perfect Lap to take Pole

We all came into qualifying knowing that Mercedes don't have pace to fight for pole. The Bahrain Circuit is in direct contrast with the Shanghai International Circuit which hosted the Chinese Grand Prix last week. While the front limited features of the latter suits the Mercedes, the Bahrain International Circuit is rear limited i.e. harder on rear tyres, something Mercedes have always struggled on. But Nico Rosberg put on a perfect lap, extracting every bit of his car to take second pole position of his career and first consecutive pole position for the German team since 1953. He was helped by the fact that Fernando Alonso couldn't improve on his final run and thus could only qualify in 3rd place. 

Sebastian Vettel took 38th pole position of his career in a rain affected qualifying session at Sepang, outpacing the Ferrari duo of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso. Light rain hit the track in the middle of Q2 - the track wasn't wet enough for intermediates nor dry enough to beat earlier times on slicks. This meant that Lotus of Romain Grosjean and Force India of Paul di Resta failed to make into Q3 while the McLarens of Jenson Button and Sergio Perez made into the final part of the session. 

In Q3, Vettel, Massa and Alonso took the right decision of using new sets of intermediates in later part of the session and will occupy the first three positions of the grid. Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg decided to continue on a single set and could only qualify in 4th and 6th place respectively. The German team looked strong in wet conditions in FP2 and was also strong in dry but a strategy error prevented them from starting the race from the front row. Another man who was disappointed after qualifying was Adrian Sutil. After an impressive comeback in Australia last weekend, the German driver topped the first part of qualifying(which was completely dry) and was hoping to finish in top 5. However, the Force India lacked pace in the wets and he could qualify only in 9th place(8th on the grid after Raikkonen's penalty). We now analyse each team's qualifying performance.

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time(1:23.282) on Day 4 of Barcelona test but it was the man who replaced him at McLaren, Sergio Perez who set the fastest lap of the test session. Perez's laptime of 1:21.848 was just a tenth slower than Hamilton's pole lap in 2012. But in 2012 teams were allowed to use DRS as per their discretion in qualifying, while this year it is limited to the DRS zone. Also, teams deliberately didn't run on qualifying fuel load in order to prevent rivals from getting hint of their actual pace.

Moving away from lap times, Adrian Sutil's return to Formula 1 made headlines this week as the German driver tested the Force India VJM06 on Day 3 of Barcelona test. After a one year absence, his laptime of 1:22.877 was 1 second off Alonso's pace and 7th fastest of the day. 

Teams reported high tyre degradation on the new Pirelli rubber and that they start to lose off pace after just one proper flying lap. However, this was mostly due to cold weather conditions at Barcelona. It is expected that this degradation will ease off during warmer conditions in the main season. Another major story was the controversy regarding Williams and Caterham exhaust designed which were banned by the FIA. More on that in our team by team review.

Here's how the 2013 grid looks after Max Chilton's seat being confirmed at Marussia. 

In the first part of our season review, we had a look at the three backmarkers - Caterham, Marussia and HRT. In the second part we focus our attention to the midfielders - Mercedes, Sauber, Force India, Williams and Toro Rosso. Thanks to the ultra-tight season and Pirelli tyres, these midfielders were able to challenge for podiums and even. Now we take a look at each of them separately.

The changing conditions made Brazilian Grand Prix and an interesting race and season finale. Title challenger Sebastian Vettel made contact with Bruno Senna on the very first corner and slipped to back of the field. He then put on an impressive drive to finish in 6th place and take the title. Alonso finished in 2nd place but that wasn't enough for the Spaniard to secure his 3rd title. Button made the right call when it came to tyres and went on to win the race. Hulkenberg was also impressive and might have won the race or at least finished on the podium without that costly mistake.

Here are a few drivers who impressed us with their performance. But who was YOUR driver of the day?

Sebastian Vettel dominated the Indian Grand Prix from start to finish to score his 5th victory of the season but he wasn't the only driver who impressed us. 

Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel topped all practice sessions and was also the fastest man in qualifying as he took his 5th pole position of the season. During the race, he got a clear get away and was a second ahead of Mark Webber by the time DRS was enabled. Despite problems with his floor touching the ground on a few occasions in last few laps he managed to keep Alonso at bay to win the Indian Grand Prix by over 9 seconds, his 4th consecutive victory of the season and 5th overall.