<p> Lewis Hamilton won a thrilling Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday after a duel with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg in a floodlit night race full of overtaking and wheel-to-wheel battles.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The win was the Briton's second in a row, the 24th of his career and also a second successive one-two for a team in a class of their own and with two drivers free to race each other from start to finish.<br /><br />Mercedes have now won all three races so far in 2014.<br /><br />"Nico drove fantastically well. It was so fair but so hard to keep him behind me," smiled Hamilton, the 2008 world champion who last enjoyed back-to-back wins four years ago with McLaren.<br /><br />"I was on a real knife edge at the end," said the Briton, who won by 1.085 seconds and described the race as the hardest since his 2007 debut season.<br /><br />Mexican Sergio Perez took third place -- 22.9 seconds behind Rosberg -- as Mercedes-powered Force India celebrated the second podium finish in their history.<br /><br />Rosberg, winner of the season-opener in Australia, stayed top of the overall standings with 61 points to Hamilton's 50 after three races.<br /><br />"I strongly dislike coming second to Lewis, but it was definitely the most exciting race I have ever done in my entire career," said the German, who had started on pole and whose disappointment was clear as he stood on the podium.<br /><br />Hamilton, whose tally of wins pulls him level with the late Argentine great Juan Manuel Fangio in the all-time lists, made the better start from second place on the grid and led into the first corner.<br /><br />He was never able to shake off Rosberg though, with both jostling for the lead in a race that made a mockery of suggestions the new V6 turbo hybrid era had turned flat-out racers into fuel-saving taxi drivers.<br /><br />The Briton's task was made tougher when the safety car came out 15 laps from the end, after Pastor Maldonado T-boned the Sauber of Mexican Esteban Gutierrez and flipped it spectacularly through the air.<br /><br />With Rosberg on softer tyres and ready to pounce as soon as racing resumed, it looked like Hamilton was sure to be passed but he held on.<br /><br />Behind them, the rest of the field was fighting similar battles with team-mates running in close two-by-two formation and scrapping for position.<br /><br />Australian Daniel Ricciardo finished fourth, despite starting 13th and behind quadruple champion team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who ended up sixth and had to let his young team-mate through early on. Nico Hulkenberg split the two Red Bulls in fifth place with Williams team-mates Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas seventh and eighth.<br /><br />Ferrari's pairing of past champions, Spaniard Fernando Alonso and Finland's Kimi Raikkonen, rounded off the scoring positions in ninth and 10th.</p>
<p> Lewis Hamilton won a thrilling Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday after a duel with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg in a floodlit night race full of overtaking and wheel-to-wheel battles.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The win was the Briton's second in a row, the 24th of his career and also a second successive one-two for a team in a class of their own and with two drivers free to race each other from start to finish.<br /><br />Mercedes have now won all three races so far in 2014.<br /><br />"Nico drove fantastically well. It was so fair but so hard to keep him behind me," smiled Hamilton, the 2008 world champion who last enjoyed back-to-back wins four years ago with McLaren.<br /><br />"I was on a real knife edge at the end," said the Briton, who won by 1.085 seconds and described the race as the hardest since his 2007 debut season.<br /><br />Mexican Sergio Perez took third place -- 22.9 seconds behind Rosberg -- as Mercedes-powered Force India celebrated the second podium finish in their history.<br /><br />Rosberg, winner of the season-opener in Australia, stayed top of the overall standings with 61 points to Hamilton's 50 after three races.<br /><br />"I strongly dislike coming second to Lewis, but it was definitely the most exciting race I have ever done in my entire career," said the German, who had started on pole and whose disappointment was clear as he stood on the podium.<br /><br />Hamilton, whose tally of wins pulls him level with the late Argentine great Juan Manuel Fangio in the all-time lists, made the better start from second place on the grid and led into the first corner.<br /><br />He was never able to shake off Rosberg though, with both jostling for the lead in a race that made a mockery of suggestions the new V6 turbo hybrid era had turned flat-out racers into fuel-saving taxi drivers.<br /><br />The Briton's task was made tougher when the safety car came out 15 laps from the end, after Pastor Maldonado T-boned the Sauber of Mexican Esteban Gutierrez and flipped it spectacularly through the air.<br /><br />With Rosberg on softer tyres and ready to pounce as soon as racing resumed, it looked like Hamilton was sure to be passed but he held on.<br /><br />Behind them, the rest of the field was fighting similar battles with team-mates running in close two-by-two formation and scrapping for position.<br /><br />Australian Daniel Ricciardo finished fourth, despite starting 13th and behind quadruple champion team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who ended up sixth and had to let his young team-mate through early on. Nico Hulkenberg split the two Red Bulls in fifth place with Williams team-mates Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas seventh and eighth.<br /><br />Ferrari's pairing of past champions, Spaniard Fernando Alonso and Finland's Kimi Raikkonen, rounded off the scoring positions in ninth and 10th.</p>