Third place for Lewis Hamilton at Sunday's Bahrain GP may not have been the best result the world champion wanted but he did produce one moment of magic along the way.

Starting ninth, after having to take a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change, the Mercedes driver had to make positions early on if he wanted any chance of challenging the Ferraris.

His first lap would be far from ideal as he went absolutely nowhere and would, in fact, be passed by Max Verstappen at the end of it, in a controversial move.

When a Virtual Safety Car was called to remove the stricken Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo though, Hamilton used the restart to strike - sweeping past Fernando Alonso's McLaren and then passing two more cars in a single straight.

After all the complaints of a lack of racing in Australia, it was just one of many overtaking moves during the race but the 33-year-old's was undoubtedly the finest of the lot.

From there Hamilton made two more conventional passes on Kevin Magnussen and Pierre Gasly before benefitting from Kimi Raikkonen's unfortunate pit-stop blunder to take the final step on the podium. 

The result was marred by a second straight win for arch-rival Sebastian Vettel, with the German taking maximum points from the first two races and moving into an early 17-point lead in the championship.

Speaking afterwards though, the Ferrari driver admitted the late battle with Valtteri Bottas was pretty intense.

"I think I came on the radio with ten laps to go [and said] 'I have everything under control' – I don't think they broadcast that one," he admitted.

"That was a lie. There was nothing under control.

"When they told me the pace of Valtteri I was like there was no way I could do that.

"I was doing the maths, oh, that pace, he's going to catch me."

When put to him that no driver since 1982 has won the first two races and then failed to win the championship, the 30-year-old had a pretty simple response.

"They had less races in 1982," he said. "Those things sometimes work for you and sometimes against you.

"Doesn't matter we won so a great feeling tonight."