SAKHIR, Bahrain - Brawn GP's Jenson Button won the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday, giving the Briton his third win in the four Formula One races this year.
Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel was second, 7.1 seconds behind Button, and Toyota's Jarno Trulli took third at the Sakhir circuit.
The result gives Button a 12-point lead in the drivers' championship, with a two-week break before the series heads to Europe.
"This race win for us is probably the best out of the lot, because we don't have a competitive edge," said Button, referring to his rival teams' recent improvement. "We are not as strong as we used to be and had to work doubly hard."
Defending champion Lewis Hamilton was fourth for McLaren, ahead of Brawn GP's Rubens Barrichello. Kimi Raikkonen finished sixth to give Ferrari its first points of the season, with Toyota's Timo Glock and Renault's Fernando Alonso seventh and eighth.
Button made a mediocre start, suffering clutch slippage off the line, and was overtaken by Vettel and Hamilton in the drag to turn one. Button impressively passed Vettel around the outside at the first corner, but was still stuck behind a defensive Hamilton throughout the first lap. But he picked up an aerodynamic tow behind the McLaren down the main straight, and passed him at turn one of lap two.
It was this move that allowed Button to tack on to the back of the Toyotas rather than have them pull away, and he passed them via the first set of pitstops. Vettel, however, could not get past Hamilton in that opening stint.
"The first lap made the race," Button said. "It's the finest first lap of my career for sure. I was very happy with my race -- I didn't put a foot wrong."
Glock got the best of the start to lead Trulli in the early stages, and the Toyota teammates held that advantage until the first set of pit stops. But they made the fateful choice of doing the long second stint of the race on the less-preferred medium-compound tire while others used the quicker super-softs.
The decision, based on pre-season testing data from Sakhir, ended any chance the team had of finally breaking through for its first ever race win.
"We were not sure about the soft tire," Trulli said. "It didn't work out. It's still points, still a good race, but our target was to win the race."
Vettel was frustratingly left behind Hamilton and Trulli for too long, but was eager for the European races in two weeks' time, when an aerodynamic upgrade including a two-tiered diffuser should see Red Bull match or surpass the pace of Brawn.
"Unfortunately the first two stints were behind traffic, which ruined our race a little bit, but we are getting stronger," Vettel said.
"We are getting very close to these guys (Brawn). Not long, a couple of bits on the car.... and soon we will be able to fight them a bit more, giving them more of a hard time."
Button has 31 points from four races, putting him 12 points ahead of Barrichello. Brawn is well out front in the constructors' championship as well.
The English driver said he was excited to see how teams will improve with the slew of upgrades ahead of the coming rounds in Barcelona and Monaco.
"We have an upgrade in Barcelona, I just hope its enough," Button said.
"For Formula One this is great. Going back to Europe there will be even more change -- this is what the sport needed and we have got it."
Ferrari's points avoided it going through the first four races of the season without a point for the first time in its F1 history.