Charles Leclerc scored his first pole position in F1 Bahrain GP ahead of Sebastian Vettel to lead a Ferrari 1-2 at Bahrain International Circuit with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in third.
Q1:
The first part of Bahrain GP qualifying had Ferrari clearly on top again with Charles Leclerc heading Sebastian Vettel with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in third from Valtteri Bottas. It was spicy behind the top teams as drivers fought their way to make it into Q2.
The session saw a near crash between McLaren’s Lando Norris and Haas’ Romain Grosjean in the final corner when the British racer was ending his quick lap while the Frenchman was starting on his flying lap – the incident was put under investigation.
Meanwhile, it was a disaster for Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg (1m30.026s) who found himself out of qualifying in 17th after looking strong in the practice session. The German lost out on the final sector on his quick lap, presumably he hit traffic.
Ahead of Hulkenberg in the drop zone was Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi (1m30.026s) with teammate Kimi Raikkonen just making into Q2 in 15th. Behind Hulkenberg was Racing Point’s Lance Stroll (1m30.217s) in 18th.
The Williams duo were 19th and 20th respectively with George Russell (1m31.759s) ahead of Robert Kubica (1m31.799s), but the Pole ended up only 0.040s behind the British racer in a close run for both of them.
https://twitter.com/F1/status/1112012388163874817
Q2:
What was looking a good run for Ferrari in the qualifying turned to be slightly difficult with Vettel having to use an extra set of soft compound in the second part after he encountered traffic on his first quick lap to be only sixth.
His teammate Leclerc was on top again with Vettel slotting in second from Hamilton. It wasn’t a great outing for the current Red Bull Racing driver Pierre Gasly and the former one, Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo with both knocked out in Q2.
Ricciardo (1m29.488s) was 11th with Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon (1m29.513s) 12th and Gasly (1m29.526s) 13th, who complained of throttle issues. Racing Point’s Sergio Perez (1m29.756s) was 14th with Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat (1m29.854s) 15th.
https://twitter.com/F1/status/1112017832521408513
Q3:
It was Leclerc on provisional pole in Bahrain GP with a 1m27.958s lap – matching Vettel’s record from 2018 – as the German opted to not run even on used compound to set a banker lap with Hamilton (1m28.190s) slotting in second and Bottas (1m28.335s) third.
Vettel’s first and only lap was 1m28.160s, already 0.202s behind Leclerc (1m27.886s) with the Monegasque then going even quicker to break Vettel’s lap record and become the second youngest pole-sitter ever behind the German. They were 0.294s apart in the end.
Hamilton was third with Bottas (1m28.256s) in fourth as Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen (1m28.752s) slotted in fifth with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen (1m28.757s) ending as the best of the rest in sixth – only 0.005s behind the Dutchman.
McLaren’s Carlos Sainz (1m28.813s) was seventh with the Top 7 ending within a second of Leclerc’s time as Grosjean (1m29.015s), Raikkonen (1m29.022s) and Norris (1m29.043s completed the Top 10 – with the trio within 0.028s of each other.