After it seemed safe to write the team off as not being a threat for this year’s World Championship, Red Bull Racing came storming back with a dominant performance this weekend. Leading the way was twice-defending World Drivers’ Champion Sebastian Vettel who scored the pole and the win while only losing the lead during the exchange of pit stops. Equally as surprising were the other two podium finishers who brought their two Lotus E20s home to give Renault a lockout of the podium.

It was a surprise to see Red Bull qualify in first and third with Vettel leading Webber and the pair being split by the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton. Considering the Brit’s strong starts and the horsepower advantage of the Mercedes engine, it was surprising to see Vettel storm cleanly off into the lead. The strong starters were the Lotuses (perhaps it should be Loti like cacti) and Felipe Massa’s Ferrari. Grosjean quickly moved from his 7th place start to 2nd before the first round of pit stops which started on Lap 8. Raikkonen couldn’t move up as quickly as his teammate but he was able to make his way to third after the first round of pitstops with a pass of Mark Webber on Lap 13.

With Renault engined cars running one through four, it looked as though things would hold station as no one car had an advantage over the other. That wasn’t to say that particular drivers weren’t faster than others. For example, Kimi is faster than you. Oh, sorry, I forgot Raikkonen doesn’t drive for Ferrari any more. But he asked Lotus if they could have Grosjean let him by after catching the Frenchman. The Iceman deployed DRS to get by Grosjean without a challenge and set off to catch Vettel.

In the run up to the final set of pitstops, Raikkonen was filling the mirrors of Vettel’s car, even getting close enough to force the leader to make some defensive moves to prevent a DRS-aided pass. Before too long, both drivers made their third and final stops. From there, Vettel stormed off into the distance while Raikkonen lagged behind in order to preserve his tyres. Last weekend, Raikkonen fell from 2nd to 14th because of poor tyre strategy so Lotus played it safe rather than be sorry.

Vettel’s win made him the fourth different driver from four different teams to win a race this season. Raikkonen’s second place and Grosjean’s third place not only gave Lotus their first podium since the marque’s return to the sport but also made for eight podium finishers in four races this season. Mark Webber finished fourth for the fourth straight race.

Rounding out the top five was Nico Rosberg who finished where he started. A two-stop pit strategy got Paul di Resta from 10th to 6th at the finish. Fernando Alonso finished 7th ahead of Lewis Hamilton who had an eventful day in the pits. Felipe Massa scored his first points of the season, riding a fast start from 14th to a 9th place finish. Michael Schumacher overcame a DRS problem in Q1 and a gearbox change to score the final point of the race in 10th.

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Part of the surprise of di Resta’s finish was the circumstances surrounding Force India’s weekend. Team members were caught in a protester road block on Wednesday. A petrol bomb exploded near their car, though there were no injuries or damage to Force India’s rental car or team members. Reports also indicate that the team members in the car may have been exposed to tear gas used to quell the protests. One of the crew in the car immediately left the country while another FI employee left the country shortly afterwards.

The team was so shaken by Wednesday’s events that they changed their running program on Friday. The team chose not to run in the 2nd practice session on Friday but instead left the track early so they could avoid any protests en route to the hotel from the track.

Circumstances like these are why people were calling for the race to be cancelled. Sure, there’s the fact that the F1 race was being used by the government as a political pawn but the safety of the drivers and teams should’ve been a bigger priority than politics. Even though no team members were injured during the race weekend, they shouldn’t have been put in a position where they could have been harmed as was the case this weekend.

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Despite being the premier form of motorsport in the world, Formula One’s race officiating is worse than what I see at the local short track. Sure, the owner/chief race official at my local third-mile oval is often accused of inconsistency and bias in his decision-making but he is willing to make a decision during the race despite not having the use of video replay or dozens upon dozens of officials trackside.

Today, three incidents were left unadjudicated by the FIA’s race stewards until after the race. There was a report that Lewis Hamilton left the track to pass Nico Rosberg shortly after the first round of pit stops. Later, it came out that Rosberg forced Hamilton off-road to make the pass. While it should’ve been a quick look at the video to see who did what, the stewards decided to delay any action until after the race. Rosberg later blocked Fernando Alonso off the track in order to defend his position. The rules state that a driver has to leave a car width alongside so as not to force a competitor off-track. This incident was broadcast live on the world feed but the stewards pushed judgement back to after the race. Neither of these were penalized but it wasn’t until about four hours after the race that we found out the result of the proceedings. There was also an unsafe release from the pit lane incident for which judgement was delayed until after the race.

While I’d rather that the race stewards let the drivers settle things out on the race track and not get involved in the race at all, I’d much prefer that any and all penalties be issued during the race. It’s not fair to the fans at the track and watching at home to not know who finished where in the race until the official results come out late Sunday. Look at IndyCar, for example. At Long Beach, Ryan Hunter-Reay punted Takuma Sato on the final lap. Before Hunter-Reay had crossed the finish line some 45 seconds later, IndyCar had issued a 30-second time penalty for avoidable contact. That’s how to run a race series. The race officiating is a farce in F1 compared to any other series in the world. They need to drop the officiating bureaucracy and adopt a faster officiating model like they have in IndyCar or NASCAR.

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I don’t know if anyone has had a worse day in the pits without losing a tyre on the way out than Lewis Hamilton. His first pit stop saw him lose at least three seconds and about three places as a result of a problem getting the left-rear tyre attached. That looked very similar to the problem that cost Button a shot at the win in last week’s Chinese Grand Prix. In the second round of pit stops, the same problem hit Hamilton again. This time, the pit stop was lengthened by about 8 seconds and cost Lewis five spots in the running order. The wheel nut was the object of attention for the McLaren crew following that second stop. That makes me think that McLaren’s pit stop issues weren’t related to the tyre changer just not doing his job right but an equipment problem which is preventing Macca from capitalizing on their speed.

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How important is having a working DRS system? When one car times in fifth on the grid and the other qualifies 18th and out in the first round of knockout qualifying, you know that DRS makes a difference. This was the Mercedes story on Saturday. Rosberg’s car performed flawlessly, though it wasn’t as fast as last week in Shanghai. Schumacher’s car was suffering from DRS issues which meant he couldn’t open the rear wing or, in turn, activate the front wing f-duct. While that only left him less than three-tenths down on Rosberg, Schumacher was left 13 thousandths on the unhappy side of the cutoff. While the DRS rules are the rules and you need all parts of your car working to be successful, it just goes to show roughly how much the DRS is worth when it’s not working.

Schumacher didn’t let the poor qualifying effort ruin his weekend, though. After starting 22nd as a result of poor qualifying and a gearbox change, old Seven-Time mounted a charge through the field. Well, it was a slow and steady charge but he was steadily moving forward through the field. Thanks to strategy, speed and some late race retirements, Schumacher was able to move through to field to a 10th place finish which gave him his second point of the season.

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The next race is the Spanish Grand Prix in three weeks’ time. It’s the officially unofficial kickoff to the European season. Of course, the European season will involve two races (Spain and Monaco) before jetting off to Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix. While not purely a Hermann Tilke track, he was contracted to redesign the final sector of the track in order to improve passing. He did this be tightening the former second-to-last corner and adding a slow chicane before the final turn. Instead of increasing passing, Tilke managed to decrease passing and create a race I routinely doze off in the middle of.

If testing times can be trusted Lotus, Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari and Toro Rosso will all be in contention for the win . Of course, after just four races, I think we can toss any conclusions from testing out the window. Red Bull looked surprisingly strong during the this week’s Bahrain Grand Prix. McLaren, pit stop issues aside, should be quick but they never seem to pull through whenever I say that. Lotus has been coming on strong in the last couple of races. Their newly found speed and testing pace at Barcelona could put them into the hunt for a win yet again.