Vettel 2-1 for title treble after victory in Bahrain

SEBASTIAN VETTEL is 2-1 for a hat-trick of world drivers titles after winning an action-packed Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday.

Vettel winning from pole position in his Red Bull and leading the world championship all sounds very 2011, but this season’s championship could not be more different from last year.

The German was the fourth different race winner in four events this season, while 66-1 runner-up Kimi Raikkonen was the second long-shot to come very close after Sergio Perez.

Vettel leads by four points from Lewis Hamilton, who would have stayed on top of the standings but for more pit-stop blunders from his McLaren team. The 2008 champion lost at least 20 seconds in the pit-lane before taking eighth place, just three seconds behind fifth place.

Hamilton is out to 5-2 from 2-1 while his team-mate Jenson Button failed to finish and has drifted to 15-4 from 5-2 before the sport made the controversial decision to go ahead in Bahrain.

The British team must be concerned that they have failed to take advantage of the apparent speed advantage they had during the opening races, particularly as it seems to have evaporated now, with Red Bull recovering strongly from their early exhaust troubles and Mercedes and Lotus looking likely to remain threats to last season’s top two teams.

The four-race opening to the season is now over and the pecking order may well have changed again by the time the cars next line up on the grid for the Spanish Grand Prix on May 13.

Read Monday's Racing Post for full Bahrain Grand Prix reaction and latest drivers and constructors championship prices and early Spanish GP betting