MANAMA (Reuters) - Brazilian Felipe Massa led Ferrari to a one-two victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday, with team mate Kimi Raikkonen seizing the championship lead from McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.

Massa's sixth career win brought him his first points of the Formula One season and came at the same Sakhir desert circuit where he fired up his title challenge last year with a pole-to-flag victory.

"Finally, after a start to the championship under dark clouds, I can see the sunshine again," he said.

World champion Raikkonen collected the 50th podium finish of his grand prix career and the Finn took over at the top with 19 points, three clear of BMW Sauber's German Nick Heidfeld, after three races.

Hamilton was 13th, the lowest placing of his career, and lapped by the Ferraris after making a rare mistake at the start and then running into the back of former team mate Fernando Alonso's Renault.

That second lap collision, passed off as a racing incident, forced the Briton to pit for a new front wing and left him struggling in 17th place with a damaged car.

"It was a very poor performance. I sort of let the team down today," said the downcast Briton, now level with team mate Heikki Kovalainen and Poland's Robert Kubica on 14 points.

"As a professional when you start off badly, you need to pick the pieces up and at least deliver some points, but I didn't do any of that for the team.

BMW TOP

McLaren were leapfrogged at the top of the constructors' standings by BMW Sauber, the only team to have finished all three races on the podium.

Kubica came third, after becoming the first BMW Sauber driver to start a grand prix from pole position, with Heidfeld a close fourth. BMW Sauber have 30 points to Ferrari's 29 and McLaren's 28.

Kovalainen was fifth, ahead of Toyota's Italian Jarno Trulli and Australian Mark Webber in a Red Bull. Germany's Nico Rosberg took the final point for Williams.

Massa made a faster getaway from the front row than Kubica while Hamilton was engulfed by the field, and took the chequered flag 3.3 seconds ahead of Raikkonen.

"The race was really difficult at the beginning, there was a lot of oil on the track," said the Brazilian. "Then during the race the car was just very good and I didn't push to the limit.

"I had a not very easy few weeks, but that's life," he added in a reference to the pressure on him after retiring in Australia and Malaysia.

"It's not the first time and it won't be the last. I had a two bad days in the first two races but I always knew that we were quick."

"I wanted to win but we've been a bit off the pace all weekend," said Raikkonen. "But I'm leading the championship so if we can score second places on the bad weekends, I'm not too disappointed.

"Kubica said he had been hampered by wheelspin at the start and then struggled with the oil on the track, with Raikkonen barging past on lap two.

"It's very good to be on the podium for the second race in a row but without the problems on the second lap, I might have been able to fight with Kimi," said the Pole.

In a relatively incident-free race, Britons Jenson Button and David Coulthard collided on lap 18 while Germany's Sebastian Vettel was shunted out at the start.