Early blow for Button
Michael Schumacher held his pole position advantage at the start of the Bahrain Grand Prix as Jenson Button’s hopes took an early blow.
Schumacher’s Ferrari led the field into the first lap of 2006 as team-mate Felipe Massa lost second to world champion Fernando Alonso.
Button started third in his Honda but slipped to sixth after a slow start, with McLaren’s Juan Pablo Montoya moving into fourth. Button’s team-mate Rubens Barrichello was fifth.
Kimi Raikkonen sliced his way through the field after his qualifying problem to move from last to 13th by the end of the first lap.
Midland’s Tiago Monteiro got his season off to a poor start when mechanical troubles left him stranded in the pits as the rest of the field blasted away.
Button recovered his composure to put Barrichello under intense pressure before slipping by into fifth on lap four.
Scotsman David Coulthard was passed by Raikkonen before dropping to 13th when Scuderia Toro Rosso’s Vitantonio Liuzzi crept by the Red Bull.
At the front, Massa through away third place when he spun on the entrance to turn one on lap eight. The Brazilian’s out-of-control Ferrari only missed second-placed Alonso by inches. He rejoined sixth but pitted for new tyres immediately.
That lifted Button to fourth but he had eyes on Montoya’s third place and began hounding the McLaren, squeezing by at the start of lap 11.
Alonso and Schumacher traded fastest laps with the gap between the top two hovering around the four-second mark.
Raikkonen’s progress through the field was halted briefly by former world champion Jacques Villeneuve, who had dragged his BMW-Sauber up to a creditable ninth place.
The other BMW-Sauber of Nick Heidfeld began moving up the order after an early spin. He pushed Coulthard on to the grass to 12th on lap 14.
A lap later leader Schumacher made his first pit stop, handing the lead to Alonso while Raikkonen finally got by Villeneuve. Button conceded second place when he pitted on lap 18 and a lap later Alonso also stopped for new tyres and more fuel to leave Montoya out front.
Giancarlo Fisichella was hit by an apparent engine problem on lap 22 and his Renault spluttered back to the pits and into retirement.
A lap later Montoya gave up the lead with his first pit stop, with Schumacher resuming his position up front. Montoya’s speed enabled him to move back in front of Button in the pits.
But Button did not accept that and repeated his earlier pass on Montoya on lap 29, diving down the inside of the McLaren at turn one.
Raikkonen’s qualifying problems allowed McLaren to experiment with an alternative strategy and he reached half distance without pitting, helping him into third. He stopped on lap 30 and rejoined in sixth.
