Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying Report

We hope we’ve got a good race on our hands! Today, during the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix we saw Valtteri Bottas claim pole position – for the first time ever!

In this post you can see reaction, interviews and a roundup report from the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying session today.

Mercedes – Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying Report

Mercedes

Well done to Valtteri Bottas who claimed his first pole position!

Valtteri Bottas

Position – 1st

Time – 1:28.769

“a big thanks to the team for giving me this car…”

“I’m really happy with my first Formula One pole – it’s my fifth season in the sport now so it took a few races.”

“Hopefully this will be the first of many – it feels good! I didn’t realise that it had been nearly 10 years since a Finn was last on pole. I’m very proud as always to drive for Finland and to represent my country – it’s not an easy track to get everything right, it’s quite technical and there are a few tricky corners.”

“Thankfully, my time was good enough for pole – I just want to say a big thanks to the team for giving me this car, it’s great that we’re both starting from the front row.”

“We’ll enjoy this for a short period of time – the main focus is now the race and there is no point of dreaming just yet. It’s all about getting the maximum out of the race and hopefully we can be a really strong team tomorrow.”

Lewis Hamilton

Position – 2nd

Time – 1:28.792

“that’s how I expect qualifying… it forces us to be on absolute limit…”

“A big congratulations to Valtteri – he’s been working so hard and he’s gelled so well with the team. Today, he was just quicker than me and did the better job so hats off to him on his first pole.”

“My lap felt great but it was so close out there – I was losing quite a bit of time through the first sector which is unusual as it’s usually and very strong sector for me.”

“Overall, a great battle and that’s how I expect qualifying to be – it forces us to be on absolute limit and I’m happy with the job I did and it’s great for the team to lockout the first front row.”

“Hopefully we’ll have a great battle tomorrow.”

Ferrari – Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying Report

Ferrari

Sebastian Vettel

Position – 3rd

Time – 1:29.247

“I tried all and maybe pushed a bit too much…”

“Overall, it’s been a good day – yesterday I couldn’t get the feeling right and I kept sliding too much. We made some minor tweaks on the set-up and the car felt better today.”

“I was quite happy with the balance – in qualifying after seeing what the gap was at the end of my first run in Q3 – I wasn’t happy so I tried all and maybe pushed a bit too much.”

“This is a circuit where you can easily overshoot it and today we were just losing a little bit everywhere around the lap – perhaps more than usual on the straights.”

“Tomorrow it should be closer and hopefully we can have a tight race.”

Kimi Raikkonen

Position – 5th

Time – 1:29.567

“I have been struggling…tomorrow is another day and the race is going to be tricky..”

“The car is good overall – I thought there was a lot of potential but for many little reasons we never really got the time out of it.”

“The final result is far from what we wanted but that’s how it ended up today – I have been struggling with finding the right set up and all-in-all it has been better here than it has been in the past few races.”

“Tomorrow is another day and the grid position is not ideal – the race is going to be tricky so lets try to make a good start and make the right decisions to take the best out of it.”

Red Bull Racing – Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying Report

Red Bull Racing

Daniel Ricciardo

Position – 4th

Time – 1:29.545

“we’re a lot closer to pole than a week ago – I’ll take that!”

“It’s been a good and positive day today – we didn’t expect much change from China to here but now we’re a lot closer to pole than we were a week ago so I’ll take that!”

“To be on the second row and to get ahead of the Ferrari is a good surprise – we kind of thought if we put everything together, there might be a chance of second row and we got it.”

“We’re learning and getting more out of the car but the aim is to try and maintain a good gap in the race – stay within half a second each lap and to replicate our pace during qualifying in the long runs.”

Max Verstappen

Position – 6th

Time – 1:29.687

“Mercedes are still too fast for us but Ferrari doesn’t look too far ahead…”

“In general the whole of qualifying was a positive experience – we improved every session up until the last run where I just got hurt in the preparation.”

“Felipe squeezed in front and I had to stay in first gear to keep a gap to him so the tyres then cooled down which hurt my first sector.”

“if you lose straight away two tenths then it’s not ideal – you try to catch up but it’s ver hard if the tyres are not in the window.”

“The pace was there today but we just lost on the last run when it counted – we have made small changed and need to optimise everything. We are definitely closer.”

“I think Mercedes is still too fast for us but Ferrari doesn’t look too far ahead – our car seems to work much better on this track so hopefully we can get a clean start with no incidents and then see what we can do in the race.”

McLaren – Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying Report

McLaren

Fernando Alonso

Position – 15th

Time – Not Lap Time Set (MGU-H Issue)

“The guys work day and night to prepare the car – we don’t have the competitive power unit to fight at the front…”

“Unfortunately my lap is Q2 was good until the last corner it was half a second better than my time in Q1 and then, when I went on throttle there was an issue with the power unit.”

“That hurt because we had a chance of being a couple of places up! Tomorrow we will have to fit a new power unit which won’t’ have the perfect settings or calibration.”

“The first lap the engine gets will be the formation lap so it won’t get any warm-up and we won’t get any laps to tune it so we’ll therefore have an even tougher race than we’d expected.”

“The guys in the garage work day and night to prepare the car – there are parts that we keep changing, we keep testing, we update and there’s hard work behind every weekend but we don’t have the competitive power unit to fight at the front.”

“It’s not an ideal situation but we’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

Stoffel Vandoorne

Position – 17th

Time – 1:32.313

“We just have to drive the perfect lap and see where we end up..”

“Everything was more or less OK with my pas – I struggled a little bit with the brakes on the second run and had a couple more lock-ups so I was lacking a little bit in confidence.”

“I don’t think there was much left in the car – our results are more or less the same as they have been during the past couple of races so I don’t think we expected things any different here this weekend.”

“We know once we get to qualifying that the others just turn up their engines and have a bit more pace in their pockets so we just have to drive the perfect lap and see where we end up.”

“The lap times in the evening are a bit quicker than in the daytime – the track surface is still very hot so it’s just difficult to manage the tyres – tomorrow, that will come in to play!”

“We’re not setting ourselves any targets for tomorrow – we just need to stay out of trouble and do a good job and hopefully get a good result.”

“The race will be tricky and there are difficult conditions out there – it’s a tough race and a long race for everyone but hopefully we can do something and benefit.”