Sebastian Vettel led a Ferrari one-two in qualifying for the 2018 Bahrain Grand Prix, beating his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen by 0.143s.
Vettel secured his 51st career pole position with a 1m27.958s on the supersoft tyres. Raikkonen was fastest after the first Q3 runs, but Vettel pipped him on his second run.
Valtteri Bottas completed the top three, just 0.023s adrift of Raikkonen’s best effort.
His Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton was a further tenth behind and will start ninth tomorrow due to a five-place grid penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change.
Daniel Ricciardo was the sole Red Bull in Q3 after Max Verstappen lost his RB14 into the barriers on the exit of Turn 2 in Q1. He’d set a time that was good enough for him to advance to the next stage of qualifying, but he couldn’t participate in Q2.
Ricciardo was fifth fastest, nearly half a second off Vettel, but almost a second clear of sixth-place Pierre Gasly, who made his Q3 debut and qualified his Toro Rosso-Honda in an excellent sixth.
Kevin Magnussen was fractionally slower in seventh position ahead of the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg and Force India’s Esteban Ocon.
Carlos Sainz Jr completed the top 10, with Brendon Hartley missing out on a place in Q3 after a mistake at the final corner.
Mexican Sergio Perez was 12th ahead of the McLaren duo of Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne.
The surprise elimination from Q1 was Romain Grosjean, who recorded a sloppy lap only good enough for 16th ahead of Marcus Ericsson, Sergey Sirotkin and Charles Leclerc, who described his final corner spin as “stupid.”
Lance Stroll was 20th and slowest of all for Williams.
