Bahrain – Qualifying: Valtteri Bottas takes his first pole position

After two initial weekends overshadowed by his new teammate, Valtteri Bottas managed to stand out at the Sakhir circuit by securing his first pole position in F1. To achieve this, the Finn waited until the very last moment of Q3 to surpass his teammate’s benchmark, who was largely dominating the session. The new Mercedes driver managed to improve his time, unlike Lewis Hamilton. The gap separating the two was just two hundredths of a second.

The Mercedes, having been off the pace since the beginning of the weekend, managed to perfectly raise their level of performance when it mattered. The Ferraris were left speechless in the face of their opponents’ charge as Sebastian Vettel is more than four-tenths off the pole time of the day and will not occupy the front row on the grid for the first time this season.

The second row was nearly 100% Ferrari, but that was without counting on Daniel Ricciardo, who was able to beat Kimi Räikkönen’s time at the very last moment of this Q3. The Finn therefore settles for fifth place, just ahead of the other Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

Nico Hülkenberg delivers another strong performance by being able to finish 7th again, just like in Shanghai. This places him once more as the best of the rest. The German will certainly hope that this excellent performance translates into a better result than in Shanghai. It was even a double Q3 for Renault as Jolyon Palmer was also able to make it into this final session, which allows him to start 10th, behind Felipe Massa and Romain Grosjean.

If Daniil Kvyat narrowly missed out on reaching the final phase of qualifying, he can take solace in the 11th place. He will start alongside Lance Stroll. But the standout performance of the day comes from Pascal Wehrlein: after his injury, the Sauber returnee was able to secure the 13th fastest time, just ahead of his former Manor teammate, Esteban Ocon.

Fernando Alonso was unable to defend his chances as a new technical problem prevented him from running in Q2 and did not give him the opportunity to start better than 15th. The McLaren session was once again frustrating as Stoffel Vandoorne had to settle for the 17th time, just behind Carlos Sainz, who was also once again let down by his machinery.

Sergio Perez also got caught out during the first phase of qualifying, finishing 18th. He was only able to beat the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson and the Haas of Kevin Magnussen.