Lewis Hamilton will start on pole position for Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix to set up what could be another tasty duel in the desert with Sebastian Vettel splitting the Mercedes in second with Rosberg only managing third place on the grid followed by the Finnish pair of Raikkonen qualifying fourth for Ferrari and Bottas fifth for Williams, followed by Brazilian teammate Felipe Massa in sixth and then Ricciardo, Hulkenberg, Sainz and Grosjean wrapping up the top ten.
In Q1 it was Nico Rosberg who set the pace 0.3 seconds ahead of teammate Hamilton before being knocked down to third by the end of the session by Hamilton and Bottas. Jenson Button’s worries continued at the Bahrain GP as his car broke down early in a session for the third time this weekend meaning he was straight out of qualifying and is set to start rock bottom of the grid, the first of the soft tyre runs then came when Hulkenberg, Perez and Nasr split the two Mercedes originally.
After returning to the pits all of the drivers then returned to the track on the soft tyres and the two Ferraris went fastest with Raikkonen lapping a 1.34.568 and Vettel with a 1.34.919, Rosberg then went quickest with a 1.34.398 but not for long when the world champion set a 1.33.928 and then Bottas split the two with a 1.34.161 down at the lower end it seemed it was a battle between Manor, Lotus, Toro Rosso, Alonso and Kvyat to stay in qualifying.
Alonso then surprised everyone with a lap worthy of ninth place to put him through to Q2 for the first time in 2015, Carlos Sainz then improved to 11th eliminating Maldonado, Kvyat, Stevens, Merhi and Button.
As Q2 commenced, everyone came out on the soft tyres as expected and it was Hamilton who lit up the time sheets with a remarkable 1.32.669, 0.8 seconds ahead of teammate Rosberg who was then once again jumped by a William’s car, however it was Felipe Massa this time who went second, the Ferrari’s then once again proved they are Mercedes nearest rivals when Vettel went third fastest ahead of Rosberg and then Vettel’s teammate Raikkonen second fastest to demoting Rosberg to fifth.
Then down at the lower end the Saubers appeared with only a couple of minutes to go and it was the Toro Rosso’s who seemed to be in the battle to stay in qualifying once again along with the Force India’s, Alonso and the Sauber duo.
Hulkenberg was the first to act as he put himself in ninth place then Sainz improved to 10th to take himself out of the drop zone and it was Perez, Nasr, Ericsson, Alonso and Verstappen who failed to break into the top 10 and found themselves eliminated from qualifying.
As the top 10 shootout began in Q3 under the lights at the Bahrain International Circuit it was the Ferraris who emerged from the pit lane first on old tyres, following this the rest of the cars emerged from the garage on old tyres apart from Ricciardo who was the only car to start Q3 on new tyres and showed the difference between old and new tyres when he went fastest before eventual pole taker Hamilton went 0.3 seconds quicker on old tyres showing his true pace.
The cars then went back into the garage until there were 2 minutes left when they all re-emerged on new soft tyres and it was Vettel who went quickest with a 1.32.982, followed by Bottas who then clocked the second fastest lap with a 1.33.381 for only a matter of seconds when Raikkonen regained second place with a 1.33.227, but then Lewis Hamilton clocked in an incredible 1.32.571 to claim pole position as teammate Nico Rosberg clocked in a 1.33.129 to only manage a disappointing third on the grid and demote Kimi to fourth.
Image Courtesy of Mercedes AMG F1 Team
