DESERT QUARTET

Company press release.

Maranello, 31 March – Sunday's race will be the tenth Bahrain Grand Prix and Sakhir is the only circuit to have hosted it, although it once ran on a different longer version. Ferrari has a quartet of wins out of nine starts, equivalent to a 45% success rate.

The Scuderia won the debut event in 2004 in a dominant style with Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello that secured the Prancing Horse's sixty third one-two.

Ferrari won again in 2007, when Felipe Massa was on a different planet to the rest, taking pole on Saturday, before leaving the rest for dead on Sunday, also setting the fastest race lap. The Paulista won from Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren and Kimi Raikkonen in the other F2007, to secure the first of four hat-tricks in terms of pole, win and fastest lap so far in his career.

Massa was victorious the following year as well, when Ferrari again secured a one-two finish, as Raikkonen was second, with Robert Kubica third for BMW Sauber, which put the Brazilian back in the championship chase after two races with no points.

The 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix marked Fernando Alonso's debut with Ferrari. He and Felipe Massa secured the Maranello marque's eightieth one-two. Alonso thus celebrated his Scuderia Ferrari debut with a win, joining an exclusive club featuring the likes of Juan Manuel Fangio, Mario Andretti, Nigel Mansell and Kimi Raikkonen.

Last year's event heaped misfortune on Ferrari. Fernando Alonso was one of the favourites, but while following Vettel who went on to win, there was a problem with the DRS, which required two extra pit stops to fix the rear wing, before he fought his way back up to eighth. Felipe Massa was afflicted with punctures, no less than two of them and finished fifteenth.