Roland Hughes from the circuit: Photographers are walking towards the back of the podium. It's a long walk on if they will be heading to the Brawn GP area of the paddock to snap Button later: the team, as the new boys, are right at the end of the paddock. Not after the end of this season, I sense. JENSON BUTTON WINS THE BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX Top 8: Button, Vettel, Trulli, Hamilton, Barrichello, Raikkonen, Glock, Alonso. Lap 56 Button leads Vettel by 8.7 seconds and can almost see the chequered flag. Lap 54 Raikkonen will need all his composure to make it home and claim Ferrari's first points of the season. The Finn is currently in sixth. Lap 52 This race is Button's to lose now. The battle or second is hotting up all the time with just 0.8 seconds seperating Vettel and Trulli. Lap 51 Top 8: Button, Vettel, Trulli, Hamilton, Barrichello, Raikkonen, Glock, Alonso. Lap 49 Ah, the dreaded curse of the commentator. Nakajima retires. Lap 48 I think I did get it wrong earlier with Barrichello as he has just stopped for his third pit. The pit stops today have been exemplary as the Brawn driver rejoins in fifth ahead of Raikkonen. Lap 47 Oh dear. Kubica's awful day is compunded when the Pole, who was last year's pole sitter in Sakhir, spinning off. There have been no retirements so far though, not ever serial retirement Piquet Jr, who is on course to finish his first race of the season. He is currently 10th. Lap 46 Button leads by 13 seconds ahead of Vettel with 11 laps remaining. Vettel is less than half a second ahead of Vettel in third. Lap 44 Raikkonen on to the medium tyres and comes out just ahead of Timo Glock in seventh place. A ding dong battle between the pair is settled when the Ferrari driver kicks in the KERS boost. Lap 42 Vettel comes out on the harder compound tyres and comes out ahead of Trulli in second place. Lap 40 Raikkonen posts the new quickest lap of the race. At least Ferrari have one car being competitive in this race, the Finn is now up to second place as Vettel goes into the pits. Roland Hughes from the circuit: Lap 39 The leader of the Brazilian radio delegation next to me is screaming with excitement down the microphone. I can only assume this is for Barrichello, rather than Massa, who is lagging behind and has already been lapped. Top 8: Vettel, Button, Raikkonen, Trulli, Barrichello, Hamilton, Rosberg, Piquet Jr. Lap 38 A trio of front runners: Button, Hamilton and Trulli - all enter the pits. Button moves on to the medium tryres. This should be the last time we see him in the pits so it's a bolt to the finish for the championship leader. Button second, behind Vettel. Roland Hughes from the circuit: Lap 36 It's a thrilling race, with some great individual battles going on. For the first time this weekend, the paddock is empty. All except one man reading a book. You can't please everyone, obviously. Lap 35 Glock in again to the pits and rejoins in 10th. The Toyota engineers radio to Trulli and urge him to put pedal to the metal and open up a gap on third-place Vettel. Roland Hughes from the circuit: Lap 33 Talk among the French reporters has centred on the future of Sebastien Bourdais, who is down in 14th. This, they believe, will probably be his last race, and it almost certainly would have been even had he not finished last in qualifying. Lap 31 Button continues to increase his lead over Vettel. Ferrari's Massa is keeping the backmarkers company and is way down in 18th place, just behind BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica, who faired so well here last year.. Lap 30 Button has opened up a 13 second lead over Jarno Trulli and looks in good shape out in front. The world champion Hamilton is chasing his first podium finish of the season and is currently fourth behind Vettel and Trulli. Roland Hughes from the circuit: Lap 29 Vettel's assurance that Bahrain is a dry heat and therefore more comfortable is being tested. Humidity is rising sharply here, and is 20 per cent at the moment. Still not Malaysia, but sticky nevertheless. Lap 28 Er, not sure what's happening here but it loks like Barrichello is into the pits again for another set of super-soft tyres? Either the Brawn GP team got it wrong last time or I did. My money is on them. Lap 26 Barrichello decides to pit rather than keep up the hustle for second. He changes to super-softs and rejoins the race in eighth. Lap 25 A great battle for second shaping up with Trulli, Vettel, Hamilton and Barrichello, who has just set the fastest time of the race, all jostling for position. Lap 24 Massa radios to his team to complain about problems with his KERS system as he languishes down in 14th. Is it going to be another day of disappointment for the Italian team? Lap 22 Button leads ahead of Trulli and Vettel, Hamilton and Barrichello. Glock Piquet Jr and Raikkonen make up the rest of the points scoring positions. Lap 21 Raikkonen pits from second and is out in 8th behind Piquet Jr and ahead of the Spaniard Fernando Alonso, who has yet to make any real impression in this race. Lap 19 Vettel ducks into the pits and is back in the race in fourth just behind Trulli. Another excellent strategic stop. Roland Hughes from the circuit: Lap 19 Another famous face floating around is Virgin tycoon Sir Richard Branson, who has just made a sponsorship offer to the Brawn GP team. Expect to see more of him in races this year. Lap 18 Barrichello moves into the points in 8th after being held up by his Brazilian countryman Nelson Piquet Jr. Lap 17 Fantastic pit stop by Jenson Button as he comes out in front of both Toyotas. Text book stuff.Hamilton also pits and rejoins the race in seventh. Vettel leads, but is still to come in, ahead of Raikkonen, who will also pit soon. Lap 15 Barrichello pits and rejoins in 11th. The Brawn driver looks to be lacking in pace again just like last week in Shanghai. Lap 14 Top 8 recap: Button leads ahead of fellow Briton Hamilton. Vettel is third ahead of Raikkonen, Alonso, Trulli, Rosberg and Glock. Roland Hughes from the circuit: Lap 13 The temperature is dropping here slightly. It's still an egg-frying 36c outside, but it is already a few degrees cooler than the start of the race and you can feel it. Lap 13 Glock in at the end of lap 11 and Trulli into the pits at the end of 13. Both drivers have gone with the harder tyres. Jenson Button leads for the first time in the race. Lap 10 Lots of messages getting through to drivers about doing whatever they can to keep their engines cool. Brawn GP tell Jenson Button to turn down his engine to prevent over-heating. Ferrari turned off Massa's KERS system as a precaution but we're now told it's back on. Roland Hughes from the circuit: Lap 8 Khaldoon al Mubarak, the chairman of Abu Dhabi Motorsport Management, has flown in and is watching the race from the Ferrari garage. It will be his, and Abu Dhabi's, turn six months from this week. Lap 6 Jarno Trulli may be second but it his Toyota setting the early fastest times. He is second behind teammate Glock but ahead of Button, Hamilton, Vettel - winner last time out in China - Barrichello, Raikkonen and Alonso. Lap 5 Mark Webber's Red Bull is carving through the field like a hot knife through butter. The Australian started the race in 18th but is now up to 11th. Ferrari's Felippe Massa also enters the pits with damage to the front wing of his car. Lap 3 Robert Kubica and Kazuki Nakajima both in for repairs to their cars. They must have collided somewhere near the start. Roland Hughes from the circuit: Plenty of "ooh"s and "aah"s in the press room here as we see a first three laps dominated by little battles and daring overtaking maneouvres. It's going to be a good un. Lap 2 Plenty of jostling for positions. Hamilton back to fourth after briefly moving up to second. Button is now third behind the two Toyotas. Roland Hughes from the circuit: As the race gets underway, there are still a few gaps in the grandstands. Attendances have not been great during practice and qualifying - organisers said they expected sales to drop a little, but has even this surprised them? Lap 1 And they're off! Trulli and Glock get away well with the German driver overtaking his Italian teammate for the lead. Lewis Hamilton makes a great start too in his McLaren as he moves up to third. 4pm I think it's safe to say we won't be starting behind the safety car this time around. They're off on their formation lap. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roland Hughes live from Sakhir: Former Led Zeppelin star Robert Plant has been seen milling around the paddock, although so far it's been a Grand Prix short of the traditional big names. Plant is here less than a day after headlining at Womad festival in Abu Dhabi. Nice timing, I'm sure you'll agree. Some within Ferrari must be ruing the lack of a sandstorm today. Team boss Stefano Domenicali admitted as much on Friday when asked what they would do if a sandstorm struck. "I will push not to run and postpone until the end of the season near Abu Dhabi. Maybe we will be more competitive." It was difficult to tell if he was joking or not. It is absolutely scorching here in Sakhir. Temperatures leading up to the start of the race hovered around 36c, with the track about 48c - not as hot as the days beforehand, though. None of the drivers seemed worried about it yesterday.
sluckings@thenational.ae rhughes@thenational.ae