Ferrari’s 2010 championship ambitions got off to the best possible start as it secured maximum points when Fernando Alonso and teammate Felipe Massa finished in first and second place at the Bahrain GP last Sunday.

Alonso marked his race debut with Ferrari by zigzagging his F10, in salute to the pit wall, as he crossed the line to take the chequered flag.

As the lights went out to signal the start of the season, Red Bull’s Sebastien Vettel led from pole with Alonso, making the most of being on the clean side of the track, got the better of Massa to get second place.

Following Massa were Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton , Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher, Red Bull’s Mark Webber, McLaren’s Jenson Button, Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi and William’s Rubens Barichello – comprising the top 10.

With the ban on refueling put into place for this season, the race proved to be boring with the best battle happening in the early stages when Hamilton was chasing Rosberg for fourth place and, in his efforts to catch Alonso, Massa set the quickest lap of the race so far on lap 9.

On lap 12, Bruno Senna earned the honor of making the first planned pit stop under the non-refueling rules. By lap 14, Vettel was pulling away from the Ferrari men before Alonso pitted on lap 16 at the same time as Rosberg, Webber, Button and Liuzzi.

One lap later, the Vettel and Massa came in to pit and when they were all back on track, the order at the front was unchanged, with Vettel 3.5 seconds ahead of Alonso and Massa almost four seconds down on his team-mate. On lap 19 it was Massa’s turn to set a fastest lap and by lap 24, the two F10s were separated by just 1.7 seconds.

By lap 29, Alonso was the quickest man on track as he began to close on Vettel. The German driver encountered problems with his engine’s sparkplugs and by lap 33 of the 49-lap race, Fernando was right on his tail. A lap later, Alonso took the lead with Massa following suit to take second. Hamilton also got past the slowing Vettel and from then to the flag, the podium positions were fixed.

Behind the three podium finishers were Vettel, Rosberg, and Schumacher.