The searing heat of the Sakhir sun looked for a moment like it would get the best of this year’s Formula 1 cars, but it was only Jenson Button’s burnt buttocks that seemed to suffer as the Briton took his third victory of the season at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Brawn GP driver beat Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Toyota pole-sitter Jarno Trulli, stretching his championship lead to 12 points.

‘I was very happy with the race,’ said a jubilant Button. ‘I didn’t feel that I put a foot wrong. It’s nice to be in a car where I can show what I can do, even in a difficult situation... it’s a very special feeling to have got this win.’

Button, who started fourth, had to battle Lewis Hamilton, when the McLaren driver jumped ahead at the start using the KERS (the energy recovery system that gives the driver an extra boost at the push of a button). ‘Lewis is a very difficult guy to overtake but I managed to get him,’ added Button. ‘That move made the race for us.’

After capturing the lead, he extended the distance between himself and Trulli (who was second at the time), giving him the opportunity to carry out a two-stop strategy without any troubles along the way. His only concern was the back markers, which gave him a lack of the clean air that he needed to cool a hot car.  Vettel, who was considered to have the quickest car on the weekend, overtook Trulli to take second when the Italian pitted for his second stop. But as the laps went by he suffered while overtaking traffic and wasn’t a threat to Button. In the end, the margin was 7.1sec between the two.

Trulli was understandably disappointed with his third place, having dominated qualifying. ‘From the start it was a hard race,’ he said.

Securing fourth, Hamilton exclaimed:  ‘I’m delighted, considering we started fifth. We had a great start, but it was so hard to keep up with the Red Bulls, the Toyotas and Brawn.  We’ve got to keep pushing, but this is good for the team.’

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

Felipe Massa had another bad day after he had to make an extra stop to check damage on his car after an early coming together with his team mate, and finished a lap down in 14th. In front of Massa were Nelson Piquet (10th), who drove a strong race for Renault, Mark Webber who started from the back of the field, Heikki Kovalainen, and Sebastien Bourdais in the Toro Rosso.

Behind were Giancarlo Fisichella (15th), who collided with the Ferrari briefly, 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 difficult race with an initial heavy fuel load. Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima was the sole retirement, after a clash with Kubica.

As for the searing heat, well, the end victim wasn’t a Formula 1 car - it was Fernando Alonso, who collapsed briefly as he went to give post-race interviews.

Oh yes, and Button’s burnt buttocks were thanks to an electrical box in the cockpit that got a bit hot.  As a sarcastic joke Vettel rubbed Button’s shoulder at the press conference, mocking sympathy. Button then replied: ‘I’ll get you stroking it later, Sebastian, don’t worry.’

Camaraderie aside, looks like the Driver’s Championship is shaping up to be a duel between the two.

On a separate note, we spotted Renault F1’s effervescent team boss Flavio Briatore deep in conversation with Mohamed Bin Sulayem in the Bahrain paddock a day before the race. We couldn’t hear what the two were talking about, but there was much arm waving and eyebrow raising. Is Falvio, we wonder, expecting a cheque for his broken F1 car?