Bahrain – Qualifying: A 100% Ferrari Front Row, Verstappen in the Wall

As usual, the weather was perfect for this nighttime qualifying session in Sakhir. It began in a context where it was already known that Lewis Hamilton would not extend his record for the number of pole positions, as the Briton was already penalized five places for a gearbox change last night.

The first surprise of this session was Max Verstappen’s off-track excursion just five minutes before the end of Q1. The Dutchman was in an ideal position to progress to Q2 as he was fourth. However, he made an error upon re-accelerating out of the first corner, resulting in oversteer that sent him into the protective wall. Although the incident occurred at low speed, it still broke his front left wheel. This caused the session to be halted for several minutes to clear the damaged Red Bull.

The drivers went out for one last attempt as Romain Grosjean and Fernando Alonso were in the danger zone, just ahead of Sergey Sirotkin, Charles Leclerc, and Lance Stroll. Fernando Alonso managed to save himself by clocking the 15th fastest time, identical to Romain Grosjean’s but achieved earlier. The Frenchman went very wide in the last corner, which eliminated him in Q1: « We need to understand. The out lap was catastrophic with four cars fighting for position. I had no grip. »

In the same last corner, Charles Leclerc made a mistake while trying to beat his teammate Marcus Ericsson’s reference. The Monegasque apologized to his team: « It cost me not to finish my lap. Today, we didn’t make the progress we wanted to make, like we did in Melbourne. But in any case, the lap wasn’t magical and I wouldn’t have made it to Q2. »

The five eliminated from this Q1 were: Romain Grosjean, Marcus Ericsson, Sergey Sirotkin, Charles Leclerc, and Lance Stroll.

Lewis Hamilton attempted an offset strategy for Q2 by putting on the soft tires for his first attempt. This allows him to start with these tires in his race tomorrow. The performance was there as the Brit slipped in between the two Ferraris. Although the Brit made a second attempt with the super softs, he did not improve his time and will therefore start with harder tires than his rivals. The Ferraris and Daniel Ricciardo calmly stayed in the pits.

But the disappointment of this Q2 is once again the two McLarens, who are unable to get out of this Q2 since Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne ranked 12th and 13th. The men from Woking will be disappointed as both Toro Rossos, equipped with the Honda engine, ranked ahead of them. Pierre Gasly even managed to qualify for his first Q3 while Brendon Hartley finished 11th due to a small mistake in the last sector. Sergio Perez also failed to make it into the top 10, unlike his teammate, the Frenchman Esteban Ocon.

At the time of the final showdown, it was Kimi Räikkönen who came out on top by setting the fastest lap, thanks to a mistake by his teammate Sebastian Vettel, who went wide at the last corner. The Mercedes positioned themselves just over a tenth behind the Scuderia cars while Daniel Ricciardo was also in the mix. The surprise was seeing Pierre Gasly’s Toro Rosso in 6th place at the end of the first run in Q3.

Valtteri Bottas climbed to second position but Sebastian Vettel waited until the very end of the session to move up to pole position and secure his 51st pole position. The two Mercedes disappoint as Valtteri Bottas ends up ahead of his teammate, who will be penalized and will start in 9th position.