Bahrain 2005: Two on the trot for Alonso.

Renault's Fernando Alonso has won the Bahrain Grand Prix to take his second win in succession following his success two weeks ago in Malaysia.

The Spaniard led from start-to-finish and had a relatively easy race to give the regie their third victory from the opening three races - and their 100th F1 win in total. It was another dominant display and following a good start he was never really challenged, despite some early pressure from Michael Schumacher, prior to the German spinning off on lap 12 after a hydraulic failure.

Jarno Trulli was left to come home second and net another podium for Toyota, 13.4secs behind his former team-mate.

The Italian though never really looked likely to trouble Alonso, and as the race went on realising they wouldn't be able to haul in the Renault, Toyota instructed Trulli to ease off, look after his engine and ensure he finished - something that is now crucial as engines have to last for two events.

Kimi Raikkonen completed the top three in the McLaren-Mercedes MP4-20, another 20secs or so down the road. The Finn enjoyed a good race after starting from ninth on the grid, and immediately made up some places, before his rivals in front hit problems and fell back, Nick Heidfeld going out with smoke pouring from the back of his FW27 on lap 25, while Mark Webber spun with about a third of the race to go, dropping him down the pack.

Ralf Schumacher was fourth in the second Toyota, the German losing out somewhat in the first round of pit-stops, after going light in qualifying two to get himself up from eleventh on the provisional grid on Saturday, to sixth this morning.

Pedro de la Rosa though was the undoubted star of the event on his return to 'F1 racing' standing in for the injured Juan Montoya.

The Spaniard lost out slightly at the start but never gave up and enjoyed an eventful race, battling with a host of drivers before passing Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello and Webber on route to fifth. He may have made a few clumsy lunges at times, but at the finish he was there and in a good position, especially when you consider this was his first F1 race since driving for Jaguar way back in 2002.

Webber was sixth for Williams, a disappointing day overall for the Aussie after he had looked set to finish on the podium. His spin 20 laps prior to the finish cost him dear, and that after his tyres were wreaked something that didn't help him one little bit when he was battling with de la Rosa.

Felipe Massa and David Coulthard rounded out the top eight, the Brazilian taking two points to get Sauber off the mark. DC meanwhile despite having a pretty awful weekend by his own accounts, and never getting to grips with the Sakhir circuit at least netted the final point. The fact he had a number of incidents, hitting Barrichello at the start and Jacques Villeneuve near the end though will not have endeared him to his rivals.

Barrichello was ninth after starting last, the Brazilian looked set to finish easily inside the top five early on, until problems with his car. Rubens had a truly awful weekend overall, and had only completed a handful of laps prior to the race after gearbox problems on Friday with the new F2005. Both he and Ferrari will be hoping for better at Imola.

Of the rest Jordan's Tiago Monteiro was tenth, with Jacques Villeneuve classified eleventh, despite having retired with suspension problems with 3 laps to go - something caused following the contact with DC. The Minardi's brought up the rear, Patrick Friesacher 3 laps down, while Christian Albers was 4 laps behind.

Amongst the retirees, in addition to Ferrari team leader, Schumacher and the Williams of Heidfeld both mentioned earlier, the two BAR's once again failed to go the distance - Takuma Sato out on lap 27 with brake problems, while clutch woes sorted out Jenson Button 20 laps or so later.

Giancarlo Fisichella also didn't get far, with smoke coming out of his R25 early on - he retired on lap 4 - when Jordan's Narain Karthikeyan also stopped with electrical problems.

At least they started though, poor Christian Klien, who had lined up an impressive seventh on the grid didn't even get going. He stalled prior to the warm-up lap and although Red Bull tried to get the Austrian going from the pit-lane the RB1 wasn't having any of it. It was later diagnosed with some sort of electrical fault.

F1 now heads to Imola for the San Marino GP in three weeks time, and following the opening two races, Alonso has established himself as the man to beat, with 26 points from a possible 30. Renault also looks strong in the constructors', 11 points up on Toyota.

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