Entering the event, Brawn GP driver Jenson Button led the Drivers' Championship by six points over his teammate Rubens Barrichello. In the Constructors' Championship, Brawn GP held a 16.5-point lead over Red Bull Racing, with Toyota trailing by an additional point. Bridgestone provided medium and supersoft tyre compounds for the weekend.
Several teams introduced technical updates for the race. Force India debuted a revised floor, diffuser, and front wing for the VJM02, while BMW Sauber elected to run the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) on Robert Kubica’s car for the full weekend. Ferrari arrived at the circuit having failed to score a point in the first three rounds; a failure to score in Bahrain would have marked the team's worst ever start to a season, surpassing their 1980 record.
Practice sessions were held in hot and dry conditions. Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in the first session, while Nico Rosberg topped the second session for Williams. In the final practice on Saturday, Timo Glock recorded the fastest time before his Toyota suffered a brake problem.
Qualifying resulted in a historic result for Toyota, as Jarno Trulli took his fourth career pole position and teammate Timo Glock qualified second. Sebastian Vettel qualified third for Red Bull, followed by Button and Hamilton. Mark Webber was a notable casualty of the first qualifying session after being blocked by Adrian Sutil; the stewards subsequently issued Sutil a three-place grid penalty, demoting him to 19th.
At the start, Timo Glock took the lead from second on the grid. Lewis Hamilton used his KERS-equipped McLaren to jump from fifth to second entering the first corner, though he was soon overtaken by Jenson Button at the start of the second lap. Several drivers, including Felipe Massa and Robert Kubica, sustained front wing damage on the opening lap and were forced to pit early.
The race was defined by diverging tyre strategies. The Toyota drivers, running light fuel loads, pitted early and switched to the harder compound tyre for their middle stint. This strategy proved ineffective as they lost significant pace. Button, running the softer tyres during his middle stint, gained enough time to emerge ahead of Trulli following his first pit stop on lap 15. Sebastian Vettel was delayed behind the slower Trulli for much of the middle of the race, allowing Button to establish a lead of over 15 seconds by lap 34.
In the final stages, Rubens Barrichello utilized the pace of the Brawn to finish fifth despite making an extra pit stop compared to his rivals. Kimi Räikkönen secured Ferrari's first points of the 2009 season by finishing sixth after a close battle with Glock. The race saw only one retirement: Kazuki Nakajima, who withdrew on lap 48 due to spiking oil pressure.
Jenson Button won the race seven seconds ahead of Vettel, with Trulli finishing third. Following the race, Button reported suffering a burn to his left buttock caused by an electrical box in the cockpit. Fernando Alonso, who finished eighth, collapsed in the media room due to extreme dehydration and a first-degree burn after his car's water pump failed and the area behind his seat overheated.
The result extended Jenson Button's lead in the Drivers' Championship to 12 points over Rubens Barrichello. In the Constructors' standings, Brawn GP increased their total to 50 points, followed by Red Bull Racing with 27.5. Nick Heidfeld, finishing 19th, equalled Michael Schumacher's record of 24 consecutive race finishes.
| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Laps | Time/Retired | Grid | Points | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | 1 | 22 | Jenson Button | Brawn-Mercedes | 57 | 1:31:48.182 | 4 | 10 | | 2 | 15 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 57 | +7.022 | 3 | 8 | | 3 | 9 | Jarno Trulli | Toyota | 57 | +9.170 | 1 | 6 | | 4 | 1 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 57 | +22.096 | 5 | 5 | | 5 | 23 | Rubens Barrichello | Brawn-Mercedes | 57 | +37.779 | 6 | 4 | | 6 | 4 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 57 | +42.057 | 10 | 3 | | 7 | 10 | Timo Glock | Toyota | 57 | +42.880 | 2 | 2 | | 8 | 7 | Fernando Alonso | Renault | 57 | +52.775 | 7 | 1 |
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