After seemingly countless months of waiting, the 2010 F1 season got into full swing in Bahrain on Sunday, with favourite Fernando Alonso taking the opening win of the season to give him the early championship lead. In a new post-race feature, Manipe F1 will be looking back at the relative performances of the Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull team-mates, charting their progress as the octet battle for the world championship.

Ferrari
It was nip and tuck between Massa and Alonso for most of the weekend in Bahrain, with Massa edging the Spaniard in qualifying by three tenths of a second. When it came to the race though, Alonso nabbed second from his team-mate at the second corner and inherited the lead once Vettel hit trouble.

In clear air Alonso was in a league of his own, and pulled out a 16-second gap to his team-mate. However, with Massa saving fuel for the final half of the race his true pace was hidden. Having also clocked a fastest lap 1.5 seconds quicker than Felipe, Alonso most definitely has the advantage after round 1.

McLaren-Mercedes
Pre-season predictions were proved correct on Sunday, with Lewis Hamilton comfortably beating team-mate Jenson Button both in qualifying and the race. In qualifying Button was four tenths off Hamilton's pace, a trend that continued into the race with Jenson finishing 22 seconds adrift of Lewis.

Although Button spent his entire race behind slower cars, Hamilton was also compromised by running behind Rosberg in the first stint but had his superior grid position to fall back on to beat Button.

Mercedes
Probably the most surprising result of the weekend was the comprehensive beating of Michael Schumacher by Nico Rosberg. In every single session Rosberg came out on top, regularly by four tenths or more, but in the fastest laps stakes Schumacher had the upper hand, albeit with less than a tenth of a second between the pair.

After qualifying 5th and 7th, Nico and Michael finished 5th and 6th respectively, with a gap of under four seconds between the pair in the closing stages. Over a race distance, Schumacher has shown he can live with Rosberg, but like Button he will have to up his game in qualifying to improve the situation.

Red Bull-Renault
Sebastian Vettel undoubtedly has the upper hand at Red Bull after round 1, having looked set for a certain win until an unfortunate spark plug failure. After taking a comfortable pole position on Saturday he led the Ferraris until lap 33 before dropping to fourth at the flag, while Webber finished eighth despite qualifying sixth.

Webber lost a place to Schumacher on the first lap, and dropped behind Button after his pitstop. With overtaking still proving to be a difficult task, Webber had to sit behind his rivals for the entire race, ruining any chance of a decent points score.