Lewis Hamilton thinks he's in love with his Mercedes car

A jubilant Lewis Hamilton says he thinks he is 'in love' with his Mercedes W06 super-car after taking control of the world championship in Bahrain.

Matching speed with serenity, Hamilton held his nerve through the final stages to claim his third win of the season and extend his world championship lead to 27 points ahead of Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.

After being pushed to the limit, and a title-deciding finale in 2014, the quality of Hamilton’s driving has apparently been extended to higher level this year.

The forlorn Rosberg has been beaten in every race and qualifying session so far with the Englishman’s latest masterclass emphatic endorsement of his pre-event suggestion that he is driving at the peak of his powers.

The 30-year-old, maturing into a near-flawless race performer, appears totally at ease behind the wheel of the W06 with man and machine in perfect harmony through the opening two months of the season.

"I remember coming through Turn 13 and just thinking ‘I love this car’," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1. "The car was nice with great driveability, I was getting on the power smoothly, and I've got the car in a nice comfortable spot."

It showed. While never able to settle into cruise mode at the front, Hamilton controlled the race from start to finish, only briefly surrendering the lead to Kimi Raikkonen when the Finn ran an extended – and perhaps erroneous – middle stint.

"It was a good day at the office," said Hamilton. "It was pretty hard because the Ferraris were quick and Nico was quick and I wasn’t able to pull the gaps as easily l would have hoped.

"It’s always easier to chase in general and Ferrari have made a good step this weekend because they were really quick. But I was really happy because l had pace and l could answer to whoever today. I had control - it's not often you have that."

Hamilton’s championship lead already stands at in excess of a full race victory, a luxurious safety-net he was never able to enjoy last season due to a combination of his W05’s unreliability and Rosberg’s spiky defiance.

Six months on from Hamilton wrestling back the initiative and a world championship lead he has refused to relinquish ever since, Rosberg appears to be running out of ideas and Hamilton has his eyes firmly fixed on a third world title

"I'm gunning for it," Hamilton warned on the podium. "Ferrari gave us a real good run for our money and out there it was really tough to look after our tyres, behind backmarkers and all sorts. Fortunately I was able to keep the car together and the tyres as healthy as possible and pull it through. But we need to keep pushing as a team."

While Rosberg – driving, though he may not appreciate the description, with Hamiltonesque aggression – relished a race-long duel with the two Ferraris before losing out to Raikkonen on the penultimate lap, Hamilton was largely unruffled throughout.

With the anticipated threat from Sebastian Vettel failing to emerge, only the long-running Raikkonen managed to sneak ahead of Hamilton on the road before being swiftly dispatched along the backstraight. But there’s little doubt that the red menace, rather than Rosberg, is now the most formidable obstacle between Hamilton and a third championship.

“Winning is winning so it doesn't particularly matter who it's against,” added Hamilton. You're trying to beat everyone out there. Naturally it's great to be having a fight with the Ferraris.

"I think for us as a team, and I think still today that Mercedes are still the best and we are working as hard as we can to keep up with this momentum that we have – but they are pushing very hard to close up.”

Catch the F1 Midweek Report on Wednesday April 22 at 8:30pm on Sky Sports F1. Marc Priestley and Mark Gillan join Natalie Pinkham to analyse the Bahrain Grand Prix.