Schumacher arrived at Sakhir as the clear early championship favourite. He had won both of the season's opening races from pole position, accumulating 20 points. Barrichello sat second with 13, and Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya was third with 12. In the Constructors' Championship, Ferrari led with 33 points — almost double the Williams tally of 17 — with Renault third on 14.
Friday and Saturday running took place under clear skies and high temperatures. On Sunday morning a desert storm swept through the circuit, depositing rain and then sand on the new asphalt. The resulting conditions were slippery even by the standards of a freshly laid surface. The rain also lowered the ambient temperature, factors that were expected to favour Bridgestone-shod teams, Ferrari prominent among them.
Four free practice sessions were held across Friday and Saturday. In Friday's opening session, the Ferraris of Schumacher and Barrichello set the pace. The second session saw Barrichello top the times by one-thousandth of a second from Montoya, with Schumacher fourth. On Saturday, Jenson Button topped both sessions in his BAR-Honda; the Williamses of Ralf Schumacher and Montoya completed the top three in the fourth session.
Saturday qualifying ran across two sessions. Drivers went out individually in the first session, in the order of their results from the previous race, each setting a single lap time. That time determined the running order for the second session, with the quickest driver from the first session going last in the second — typically a cleaner-track advantage. A second single timed lap in that session set the final grid. Kimi Räikkönen, who had suffered multiple engine problems in practice, had McLaren abort his second-session effort to conserve his Mercedes engine. Nick Heidfeld, Zsolt Baumgartner, and Räikkönen each received ten-place grid penalties for engine changes.
At the start, Barrichello pulled away fractionally quicker than Schumacher, but Schumacher turned aggressively into the first corner to defend his position. Montoya held third, while Takuma Sato moved past Ralf Schumacher for fourth. A few laps later Ralf Schumacher dived inside Sato at the first corner; as he turned in for the next corner, his rear wheel contacted Sato's front wheel and he was spun around. Officials issued Ralf a warning for leaving insufficient racing room.
On lap 8, Räikkönen's Mercedes engine exploded, his third consecutive retirement in three races. At the end of that lap, race leader Schumacher opened the first of the pit stop cycles. He rejoined in sixth but returned to the lead as the other frontrunners made their stops. Barrichello stalled leaving his pit box and rejoined more than fourteen seconds behind his teammate, yet retained second place over Montoya. Renault's Jarno Trulli climbed to fourth, while teammate Fernando Alonso — who had started sixteenth, taken damage on the opening lap, and made an unscheduled stop — worked his way up through the order. When Mark Webber ran wide at the first corner, Alonso went through on the inside and continued to a sixth-place finish. Ralf Schumacher was involved in a further incident, this time with Giancarlo Fisichella, sending the Italian into a spin.
The order at the front held steady through the second and third pit stop rounds. On lap 47, however, Montoya slowed with a gearbox failure. Button, having already moved past Trulli, swept past Montoya to secure his second consecutive podium. Montoya's Williams deteriorated to thirteenth by the finish. Schumacher and Barrichello completed the race without further incident to deliver a dominant Ferrari one-two.
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