Raikkonen back up to speed in Bahrain

Kimi Raikkonen was dominant on his Ferrari debut in the Australian season-opener last month, winning from pole position and with the fastest lap, but engine worries slowed his efforts in Malaysia.

He finished third at Sepang, behind a McLaren one-two led by Alonso that sent the Spanish double world champion two points clear in the standings.

With a new engine for the third round of the season, Raikkonen is confident he will be back up to speed at Bahrain's Sakhir circuit.

"Because of the engine worries we had to make compromise after compromise," he said on his website (www.kimiraikkonen.com) of the Malaysian race.

"That put us in a position where we did not want to be."

"I always want to fight for the victory," he added. "That is why I felt a little bit disappointed and empty inside, when I had to race just in a way to be able to finish it. It is like playing a football game defending a goalless draw.

"We will get a new fresh engine in Bahrain. That makes me feel very optimistic... when we have our whole package working 100 per cent, we should be back to the same speed as what we had in Melbourne."

The Finn has twice finished on the podium at Sakhir, in third place in 2005 and 2006 for McLaren, but Alonso has won there for the last two years with Renault.

Despite evident improvement by his Mercedes-powered team, the Spaniard still expects Ferrari to have an edge with Raikkonen and Brazilian Felipe Massa.

Champions Renault, failing to make even the top 10 in qualifying in Malaysia and picking up only a few meagre points so far, appear to be out of the picture.

"The Ferrari was a little bit quicker than everybody in the (pre-season Bahrain) test so I still believe it will be very, very hard to beat them again. I think we will have again a difficult weekend," Alonso said after Sepang.

Hamilton frenzy

Massa, on pole in Malaysia, will be eager to make up for being outgunned at the start by the McLaren drivers and then botching an attempt to overtake outstanding British rookie Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton, Alonso's team-mate, will attract even more attention after a truly sensational start to his Formula One career.

No driver has ever been in the top three in all his first three races and Hamilton will have to deal with the feverish expectations of those who see a natural progression in his results, with third place in Australia followed by second in Malaysia.

The British media, without a world champion since Damon Hill in 1996 and hungry for success, have already gone into overdrive.

"Hamilton joins grand prix greats," declared the Daily Telegraph in a front page headline on Monday after his exceptional drive in Sepang where he overtook both Ferraris off the line and then kept them behind him like an old hand.

"Lewis Hamilton showed that he is potentially a greater racing driver than any of the eight Britons who won the world championship," it added.

With just two races under his belt, Hamilton has a long way to go before that can be properly assessed. But another performance like the first two is entirely possible.

"You have to take it step by step," he said at Sepang, trying to keep a lid on the excitement. "We are very competitive, as you can see, but we need to keep on pushing."

Formula One statistics...

• Fernando Alonso's victory in Malaysia was the 16th of his career, lifting him alongside Briton Stirling Moss in the all-time list of race-winners.

• Only 11 drivers have won more, with now-retired seven times champion Michael Schumacher holding the record of 91 victories.

• The victory was also McLaren's first since October 2005, when Kimi Raikkonen triumphed in Japan, and first one-two since Brazil in September 2005 when Colombian Juan-Pablo Montoya led Raikkonen home.

• If McLaren win again in Bahrain, it will be the team's 150th grand prix victory since Bruce McLaren's first in Belgium in 1968.

• Ferrari have now won 193 races and Williams 113. Renault have won 33. Two teams, Super Aguri and Spyker, have yet to score points in Formula One.

• Alonso should become only the 10th F1 driver to score more than 400 points. He currently stands on 399. Schumacher holds the record of 1,369.