Lewis Hamilton was the defending race winner, while his Mercedes team-mate, Nico Rosberg was the Drivers' Championship leader coming into the round.

During qualifying, which saw the second iteration of the heavily criticised "elimination format", Hamilton achieved pole position ahead of Rosberg and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.

[6][7][8][9] However, in the week after the race, the sport's Strategy Working Group met to formally vote on the matter, and chose to keep the "elimination" format in place for the Bahrain Grand Prix and subject to a more thorough review ahead of the next round in China.

[11] Mercedes' motorsport director Toto Wolff remained adamant that the format needed to be reverted, saying that he did not expect qualifying to be more entertaining than it had been two weeks before.

[12] Drivers were equally critical of the retention of the changed format: Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel told the press that he was "as disappointed as probably anyone I know",[13] while Mercedes's Lewis Hamilton called the decision "strange [...], particularly because the most important thing is the fans were unhappy".

[14] Another meeting was scheduled for race day to discuss the format, with both Jean Todt, president of the FIA, and Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One's commercial rights holder, in attendance.

[15] In the aftermath of a collision with Esteban Gutiérrez in the Australian Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso was ruled out of the event with broken ribs and a pneumothorax, and as a result was replaced with McLaren reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne.

[26] Celis went off track at one point at turn 3, leading him to back off the pace in order not to damage the car, as his responsibility laid mainly with gathering information for the team.

[28] Several drivers voiced surprise over McLaren's pace during Friday's practice sessions, described by Button as the team's best "for a couple of years".

Vandoorne was eleventh-fastest in his second session, while Sergio Pérez, who took back the car from Celis, was fifteenth, two places ahead of his teammate Nico Hülkenberg.

[28] Vibrations from running over the kerbs caused the front wing on Romain Grosjean's car to dislodge, forcing him off track.

[30] At the end of the session, Renault's Kevin Magnussen failed to stop for weighing, instead returning to his garage, where work was conducted on his car.

Felipe Massa ran a new, shorter nase for Williams, but managed only the ninth-fastest time, more than half a second slower than teammate Bottas.

[25] At the beginning of Q1, all cars set fast laps, before the top placed drivers returned to the pitlane, leaving the track to the ones fighting elimination.

[33] The second part of qualifying started problematically, as the red light at the end of the pitlane, indicating that cars had to stop, was still on when the clock began to run.

[34] During the session, Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time, but a mistake by Nico Rosberg meant that Vettel was able to place second.

Nico Hülkenberg was the only driver to go out to improve his time, managing to proceed into Q3 in eighth place, leaving Grosjean, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr.

[33] As the frontrunners set their first timed laps in Q3, Hamilton made a mistake and ran wide at the last corner, leaving him behind Rosberg and both Ferrari drivers.

Hamilton set the fastest ever lap at the Bahrain Circuit, at 1:29.493, to achieve pole position ahead of Rosberg, who was just 0.077 seconds slower.

While Sebastian Vettel described it as "a shit idea" and Daniel Ricciardo said that he "wouldn't be too keen on that", Jenson Button deemed it a better plan than the existing elimination format.

[43] At the start, Rosberg pulled into the lead ahead of Hamilton, who came into contact with Valtteri Bottas and dropped back to ninth place.

Rosberg made a pit stop another lap later, coming back out securely in the lead, while Hamilton closed on Räikkönen, now 3.7 seconds behind him.

The order at that point stood as: Rosberg, Räikkönen, Hamilton, Ricciardo, Kvyat, Grosjean, Verstappen, Bottas, Vandoorne and Massa.

[43] At the post-race podium interviews, conducted by former Formula 1 driver David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg hailed an "awesome weekend" and said that the start had been the key factor to his victory.

[47] Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene lauded Räikkönen's drive as "absolutely spectacular", adding: "If you look at the overtake around the outside of [Daniel] Ricciardo, he reminded me of the driver from the old times.