The Saturday in F1 Bahrain GP was eventful with a close qualifying that saw Red Bull get pole as Mercedes fell behind.
The F1 Bahrain GP qualifying was a close one on Saturday where Red Bull eventually found pace to end up 1-2 where Max Verstappen took pole from Sergio Perez. It was not easy as they had to dig deep after the RB19 worked differently in Bahrain than testing.
They aren’t going into the details but they seem to have lacked the one-lap pace. With Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc electing not to run, Red Bull had 1-2 in pocket. They are banking on the race pace to get through Bahrain GP with a win and start 2023 as they hoped to.
For Leclerc, they already decided not to run the second time electing to save a set of tyres and use them at the start of the F1 grand prix to have an extra edge over the Red Bull cars. The Monegasque admits it isn’t a game changer strategy but worth the try.
His teammate Carlos Sainz who has struggled all-weekend, found some pace in qualifying to be fourth ahead of both Aston Martin and Mercedes. For the former, Fernando Alonso ended up fifth ahead of the latter to validate their strong pace.
While it has been clear that Red Bull and Ferrari have more pace, Aston Martin slots themselves well into the Top 4 with Mercedes not having the supreme pace. Alonso’s teammate Lance Stroll also had a good run to be eighth with a broken wrist.
George Russell finished ahead of Lewis Hamilton as they felt much better in qualifying than Friday. It is clear that the W19 is not the step that they had hoped for but it has enough pace to be in the Top 4, fighting with the likes of Aston Martin and Ferrari.
Verstappen: “I’m particularly happy because my whole weekend up until qualifying was very difficult. I couldn’t really find the comfortable balance I had in testing and I was just struggling a lot to just get the car together, really. I went into Q1 and everything already felt a bit better, but it was still not, let’s say, perfect. So yeah, I’m very happy then in Q3 that we could put these laps in. I still think it’s not perfect, but in a better direction. So, for sure, for the next race we will have to analyse a bit why from the test to the race weekend it’s so different for us, and also for me driving wise. But nevertheless, we are sitting here with two cars. So coming off last year I think this is again a very strong start for us. So yeah, very happy with that. A lot. I went left and right and back to the middle and found a bit of a compromise. So that’s a bit unusual that you make such big changes. But, like I said, luckily in qualifying that’s probably the best balance I’ve had throughout the weekend so far.”
Leclerc: “We found a lot of performance in Qualifying. But I mean, ‘a lot of performance’, we were in the fight, which is something that I probably did not expect. So, it’s a good surprise. To tell you where we found the performance, I’m not really sure, so we need to look into that. Because as much as we need to understand the bad days, I think we also need to understand the good days. That’s how we will improve but good that it’s like that. But we also need to be realistic. I mean, those guys, and also Aston Martin, seems to be really, really quick in the race. Which is why I think, we made that choice in Q3 to be willing to lose one or two positions at the start, but having new tyres to put all the chances on our side, which I’m sure is the right choice. I think we are only happy if we win. But again, realistically, they seem to be very, very quick. So I think in those weekends where we are a little bit underneath, that’s exactly those weekend that we need to maximise and, and try to get what we can in terms of points. So yeah, if a win is possible tomorrow, I will go for it. If not, we’ll try and get the maximum points.
Alonso: “This is just an unbelievable result and car that we are driving at the moment. This is just the baseline, the starting point of this project. Everything is new, so we have now a good platform that we can develop in the next weeks and the next races. Starting in the top five in race one, this is just unreal. We are enjoying every moment, every practice. It seems too good to be true, too good to be true, but now finally we are in qualifying and we are still top five, fighting with Ferrari and Mercedes. This was unthinkable eight months ago. So far, the strength of this car has been the long run. Very low degradation on the car, taking care of the tyres very good. We start top five, so if there is an opportunity, we are very, very close to the podium.”
Russell: “After yesterday – we had a bit of a shocker, so credit to all of the engineers who worked overnight and the people back at the factory to find a lot more pace – to be fair this is probably where we expected to be after testing and ahead of the race weekend. Obviously not super positive, but we’ve got to take some positives out of the fact that we made some good gains overnight and it’s probably given us a good direction for the future. I think even yesterday our race pace wasn’t too dissimilar to Ferrari, but considering our base performance seemed really poor yesterday, we’re probably in better shape. Fernando’s a bit of an unknown. I think those two Red Bulls at the front are just going to disappear into the distance so I guess the fight for third is definitely up for grabs.”
The pack behind saw some surprises especially from Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg, who ended up inside the Top 10. The German’s final lap was deleted for track limits but getting in Q3 was the result they wanted after Kevin Magnussen was knocked out in Q1 due to traffic.
Alpine had opposite results too with Esteban Ocon in the Top 10, while Pierre Gasly was knocked out in Q1 itself. The latter did not have pace as he didn’t feel the car to his liking where even without a deleted lap, he would have been in Q1 itself.
For McLaren too, Lando Norris showed solid resilience to make it in Q2 and finish in 11th after teammate Oscar Piastri was knocked out in Q1 where he didn’t hook up the final lap. The F1 team did not have enough pace on Friday, but Norris did well in the end.
He managed to finish ahead of the Alfa Romeo pair, who were a bit disappointed to not make it in Q3 but were fine to start close to it with a good chance to score points. AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda was surprised with a Q2 result despite lack of pace.
His teammate Nyck de Vries didn’t manage to get a good lap to be knocked out in Q1 itself. Williams, meanwhile, were happy with Alexander Albon in Q2 and Logan Sargeant almost making it in, finishing 16th with an identical time to Norris who was 15th.
Hulkenberg: “That’s not bad. What do you think? What do you say? I think it’s alright. It was not perfect in Q3 unfortunately, but I think I’m not going to let that ruin my day and my mood. I think that was pretty decent, I’m pretty happy with how I was able to produce and deliver the laps. I think we saw already yesterday that over one lap we’re in a pretty decent spot and quite competitive, but the real test will come tomorrow. So yeah, big focus and emphasis on tomorrow. I expect a really tough battle, tough race, but yeah, I’m excited – look forward to it.”
Norris: “P11 in the first qualifying of the year, I would say I’m reasonably happy with that. I think we pretty much got everything out of the car. There maybe was a tenth left in it but I needed two tenths to gain any positions. It was a tough qualifying, it was very close between all the midfield and even the top cars, to be honest. It was a little bit better than I was thinking coming into the session, so we’ll take it. It’s a long race ahead tomorrow and a track we can overtake on, so hopefully we can move forward.”
Bottas: “It was a straightforward qualifying session for us, and starting from P12 we will be definitely aiming for a place in the points. I’m quite happy about the laps I delivered and it’s good to see how Zhou was able to push me as well: we were just a bit short of Q3, but the midfield is really close and everything can still happen. From what we have seen in testing, we are not bad in race trim, and it will be interesting to see how tyre degradation will affect different cars: it’s quite difficult to predict how the race will shape up, but we’re going to give it our best shot.”
Albon: “We had some front wing damage in Qualifying, and we lost one of the flaps, so we didn’t complete a lap in Q2. It’s disappointing as, looking at the times in Q2, I really believe we could have made it to Q3. I’m a bit disappointed after being P9 in Q1 and I feel like we deserved more than where we qualified but I think if you look at where we were this time last year and where we are at this year, apart from Aston Martin, we’re the team that has made the biggest step forward. I’m really proud of everyone at the team and at the factory and things are going in the right direction. We really do come alive when the track becomes cold and I would say our race pace is stronger than our qualifying pace, so let’s see what happens tomorrow.”
De Vries: “Yeah, obviously the last run was going to be crucial, and sadly yes the start of the lap I lost the rears [at the] exit of Turn 1, exit Turn 2, and then exit of Turn 8, so I felt like they weren’t quite where I wanted them to be – but it is the way it is. I think anyway our long run pace seemed slightly better than our short run pace yesterday but let’s find out tomorrow. The midfield is so tight I think it can swing round very quickly.”
Gasly: “Clearly, this is not the start to the season we wanted being knocked out in Q1, that said, it means we have everything to gain for tomorrow’s race and I’m definitely feeling positive that we can still come away with points from this weekend. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite feel at one with the car today and that meant we were way below where our true level is. There’s a lot of work ahead of us to continue our understanding of the car and I’m confident we will come back stronger for our next qualifying session. My focus is on tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to the race and giving it my all.”
Here’s how F1 Bahrain GP qualifying panned out
