Jenson Button made it three wins out of four for Brawn GP in Bahrain on Sunday afternoon, with a finely judged performance that stretched his world championship score to 31 points.

Before the race the Englishman had suggested that Brawn’s domination was under threat. But when Red Bull dangerman Sebastian Vettel lost out at the start as McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton burst through to momentarily separate the Toyotas, Button was able to squeeze round the outside of the German in Turn One and was thereafter never threatened by him.

It was just a matter of waiting for the Toyota to make their stops (leader Glock on lap 11, polesitter Trulli on lap 12), and thereafter he only lost the lead after his own first stop on lap 15 (regaining it on lap 22 when Vettel and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen stopped), and after his second stop on lap 37, when Vettel again moved ahead for three laps.

Far from challenging, the young German had his hands full looking after his tyres in traffic, and as Button sped away the Red Bull driver had to contend with a strong challenge to the end from Trulli. A day that started well for Toyota ultimately yielded a podium finish, but after both cars started from the front row that had to count as a disappointment. Trulli blamed a long middle stint on the prime Bridgestone tyre which let Vettel pass in the final stops.

Hamilton quickly faded after his KERS-assisted start, but nevertheless ran strongly to a good fourth place for the improving McLaren team.

Rubens Barrichello had an up and down afternoon in the second Brawn with three pit stops, and grabbed fifth ahead of Raikkonen, who thus scored Ferrari’s first points of the season, having led laps 20 and 21 after a long opening stint. The Finn actually fell behind Glock when the German made his second stop, but used his KERS to squirt past into a sixth place that the Toyota driver challenged to the flag. Fernando Alonso completed the points scorers in eighth for Renault, fending off Nico Rosberg after the latter’s final stop.

Felipe Massa had a terrible afternoon after an extra stop to check damage sustained in first-corner traffic at the start, and could only finish a lapped 14th. Ahead of him were Nelson Piquet who drove a strong race for Renault, Mark Webber who charged from the back of the grid for Red Bull, Heikki Kovalainen who never recovered from a terrible start for McLaren, and Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais.

Behind were Giancarlo Fisichella, who collided with the Ferrari briefly and then held up Button on the 51st lap, his Force India team mate Adrian Sutil, Sebastien Buemi in the second Toro Rosso, and the BMW Saubers of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld which had a simply dreadful time with an initial heavy fuel load. Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima was the sole retirement, after a clash with Kubica.

Button now has 31 points from Barrichello on 19, Vettel on 18, Trulli on 14.5 and Glock on 12. Brawn have 50 points, to Red Bull’s 27.5 and Toyota’s 26.5. Ferrari got their points tally off the ground, and have three.

Friday’s two practice sessions at Sepang produced encouraging signs that Brawn GP are unlikely to have things all their own way in this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix, as Ferrari and Williams set the pace. On a track likely to be better suited to the KERS runners than Albert Park, the teams focused on their usual tyre evaluation and chassis set-up work, with track temperatures hitting a heady 42 degrees Celsius. We take a team-by-team look at progress...

Ferrari
Kimi Raikkonen, 1m 36.646s P6/1m 35.707s, P1
Felipe Massa, 1m 36.561s, P5/1m 35.832s, P2
Ferrari had a positive day, with Raikkonen and Massa setting the fastest times overall as they dominated the second session. Certainly their KERS were helping them to get down the main straights very quickly, though Raikkonen had a problem with his in the morning when the batteries short-circuited. Massa complained of understeer in high-speed corners and oversteer in the low-speed turns, but said his car got better as the day progressed and the temperature rose.

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, 1m 36.747s, P9/1m 35.954s, P3
Mark Webber, 1m 36.703s, P8/ 1m 36.026s, P5
Vettel was pleased with the precautions he had taken to ensure that parts of his anatomy remained cool out on the track, and said he generally had a smooth day as he bagged third-fastest time in the afternoon. Webber had a much better time than he did last week in Australia, and was very close to his team mate.

Williams
Nico Rosberg, 1m 36.260s, P1/1m 36.015s, P4
Kazuki Nakajima, 1m 36.305s, P2/1m 36.290s, P8
Rosberg and Nakajima dominated the first session with the two quickest laps right at the end. The German was happy with the way things went in the afternoon too, though he lost a good lap when Fisichella brought out the yellows in sector three. Nakajima also made positive noises.

Brawn GP
Rubens Barrichello, 1m 36.487s, P4/1m 36.161s, P6
Jenson Button, 1m 36.430s, P3/1m 36.254s, P7
There were no fireworks from Brawn today, as Barrichello and Button set about learning their cars’ behaviour in such hot track conditions. Both struggled to balance out understeer, and said that the BGP001 was not yet handling as crisply as it had in Melbourne. A precautionary gearbox change for Barrichello after the sessions means a five-place grid drop come Sunday.

McLaren
Heikki Kovalainen, 1m 38.483s, P20/1m 36.397s, P9
Lewis Hamilton, 1m 36.669s, P7/1m 36.515s, P11
Most of McLaren’s day was taken up with the fallout of Hamilton’s disqualification from third place in last week’s Australian Grand Prix, and the subsequent suspension of sporting director Dave Ryan. Kovalainen undertook evaluation of new bodywork in the morning but lost time after flat-spotting a tyre. Hamilton likewise tried the new bodywork and reported that his car was better than he expected, but still lacked grip in the high-speed corners.

Renault
Nelson Piquet, 1m 37.199s, P14/1m 36.401s, P10
Fernando Alonso, 1m 37.395s, P16/1m 36.640s, P15
Alonso was still not feeling great after getting an ear infection on Thursday. He played second fiddle to Piquet, who said he had a good day with no major problems. He obviously didn’t count the right front wheel failure, which pitched him into the gravel in the morning session.

Toyota
Jarno Trulli, 1m 36.982s, P11/1m 36.516s, P12
Timo Glock, 1m 36.980s, P10/1m 36.639s, P14
Toyota kept their powder dry by concentrating mainly on race set-up work rather than lap times. Both drivers spun, but while Trulli was optimistic about finding a good set-up for on Saturday, Glock said his TF109 didn’t feel quite right and was troubled by instability. He was feeling more positive by the end of the second session.

Toro Rosso
Sebastien Buemi, 1m 37.634s, P17/1m 36.628s, P13
Sebastien Bourdais, 1m 38.022s, P19/1m 37.278s, P18
Buemi made the most of his GP2 experience of Sepang and was quite happy with the way his day went. Bourdais was fairly content with the balance of his car.

Force India
Adrian Sutil, 1m 37.241s, P15/1m 36.875s, P16
Giancarlo Fisichella, 1m 37.025s, P12/1m 37.432s, P19
Sutil said he had a problem-free day which enabled him to focus on set-up work, but didn’t like the understeer his VJM02 had in the high-speed corners. Fisichella complained of locking front brakes, poor grip and poor traction, and then the team complained about him crashing his car in the afternoon.

BMW Sauber
Robert Kubica, 1m 37.039s, P13/1m 37.267s, P17
Nick Heidfeld, 1m 37.640s, P18/1m 37.930s, P20
Like Toyota, BMW Sauber did their usual trick of focusing on race set-up work, so not too much should be read into their relative lap times and positions. Heidfeld tried KERS in the morning and ran without it in the afternoon, to effect a comparison. No decision has yet been made whether to run it for the race. Kubica had one off-course moment, but otherwise gathered plenty of useful information on Bridgestone’s hard and soft tyre compounds.