Vettel hangs on, Red Bull melt down and Kimi's costly stop - Bahrain Grand Prix in pictures

After a dour Australian Grand Prix to open 2018, we were treated to a much more thrilling spectacle at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel took an unlikely win from Valtteri Bottas, but that is only just the beginning of it. Here we recap the best images of Sunday's Sakhir spectacular.

Vettel made a clean getaway, but Valtteri Bottas jumped Kimi Raikkonen for second place. Behind them was all kinds of madness.

Daniel Ricciardo's car shut down completely after just one lap. Worse was to come for Red Bull...

Displaced duo Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen made contact into turn one on the second lap. Verstappen would suffer a puncture and subsequent damage ended his race soon after. Verstappen was saying his goodbyes and leaving the track with 20 laps of the race remaining!

Hamilton continued on, pulling off the move of the race - a stunning TRIPLE overtake of Fernando Alonso, Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon down the pit straight.

As Mercedes' one-stop strategies put Ferrari on the back foot, things went from bad to worse for the Scuderia as Raikkonen's second stop was botched and his rear-left tyre went unchanged.

A mechanic also suffered as Raikkonen left the pit box prematurely. Ferrari confirmed he had suffered a badly broken leg.

It meant Vettel had to try and make a one-stop race work with 39 laps to run on soft tyres designed only to do 30 tours.

Try as he might, Bottas couldn't make the pass stick on the final lap and Vettel took victory!

Hamilton completed the podium, despite starting ninth, but the star of the day was Pierre Gasly, who finished fourth for Toro Rosso - the best result for a Honda-powered car in F1 in almost 10 years!

But the omens are best for Vettel. A driver has not won the opening two races of a season and not gone on to take the title since 1982!