Bahrain GP: Verstappen wins pole for F1 season opener

Max Verstappen, who had the fastest time in every practice session,  ended up claiming the pole from reigning Champion Lewis Hamilton for the Bahrain GP.

Verstappen has marked himself out as the man to beat all weekend in Bahrain, the Dutchman topping the times in all three practice sessions and building on that form by winding up his performance through each segment of qualifying.

He pipped Hamilton by 0.023s after the first runs in Q3 and though Hamilton improved on his second timed lap, the chasing Verstappen was going quicker too with purple times in all three sectors to move back ahead for back-to-back pole positions for the first time in his career.

“It’s a great feeling to be on pole and I haven’t experienced a season start like this. After the victory in Abu Dhabi the whole Team has been pushing really hard and even more motivated. There is still no guarantee for the rest of the year but everyone here and back at the factory have done a great job to give me a car like this and they should be very proud. Honda have also been working very hard this winter, just like every year. They are flat out all of the time and like us they just want to win. It is really enjoyable working with them and they are very passionate which I like, so a big credit to Honda for the result today as they have had a great winter. After testing it is always difficult to know where you are and we really didn’t know how it would be in qualifying but when you have a lap like that in Q3 and such a good feeling in the car you can be happy. We have to finish it off tomorrow but if I can have a good start I’m confident we can do a good job.”

Mercedes may have been pipped, but with Valtteri Bottas slotting into third, it confirmed that the Silver Arrows had made big gains from pre-season testing and are very much in the fight with Red Bull for the spoils, as F1 enjoyed a genuine two-team battle for pole position.

“Max did a great lap, nearly 0.4 is a big gap so we have some work to do! The car was feeling good in Q1 and Q2, we took until the last minute trying to find the right set-up and it felt sweet. Just at the end I couldn’t get any more from it but still, it was exciting. I’m immensely proud of everyone. We’ve worked very hard over the last week to try and understand the package that we have. We made some steps forward but we couldn’t compete with that last lap Max did. P2 puts us in a position to cause Red Bull trouble tomorrow.”

Valtteri Bottas qualified third, followed by Charles Leclerc  4th for Ferrari while Pierre Gasly rounded out the top-5 for AlphaTauri.

Daniel Ricciardo beat his McLaren teammate Lando Norris to sixth, with Carlos Sainz failing to improve on his second run and ending up eighth, half a second behind Leclerc. His countryman Fernando Alonso hit the ground running on his return to F1 with Alpine after two years away from the sport with ninth, as Lance Stroll closed out the top 10 for Aston Martin.

It wasn’t such good news for his new teammate Sebastian Vettel, who was dumped out in the first part of qualifying and will start 18th, while the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez failed to make Q3 as he ended up 11th.

Vettel is clearly washed up, but he always has an excuse. He got thoroughly trounced at Ferrari by a rookie and clearly something has happened to him.  Either he has to hang it up, or start to produce.

“I think it is fair to say the result today is disappointing and not what we wanted. My first lap in Q1 had quite a bit of margin for improvement, but on my second run there were two yellow flags, which made it impossible to progress to Q2. There was a yellow flag at turn one and one later in the lap too. I was just unlucky with my position on the track. On a positive note, the car felt better in qualifying and all the work we have done since testing is taking us in a good direction, so we have the potential to be faster. Even though we are not starting where we want to be, it is tomorrow that counts. Our job is to maximize all the opportunities and see what happens.”

And to make matters worse, he ignored double yellow flags and has been called to appear before the stewards.

Should Vettel be found to have breached the rules, a five-place grid drop and penalty points could be on the cards – which, given that he only qualified P18, would put him plum last on the grid for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

How It Happened

Verstappen went into qualifying having topped all three practice sessions and the superior pace of his new RB16B car was evident from the opening runs of Q1. With his first lap of the session he powered to the top of the timesheet with a lap of 1:30.499, a little over a tenth ahead of Yuki Tsunoda of AlphaTauri and 0.118s in front of Hamilton.

Further back, the drop zone ahead of the final runs featured Alpine’s Esteban Ocon followed by Williams’ Nicholas Latifi and George Russell and then the Haas cars of Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher.

Only Russell managed to avoid the exit door and the Williams driver’s early final run saw him jump to P7 before a slide back to 13^th place at the end of the session and progress to Q2.

Russell’s early final flyer proved wise as in the closing moments Nikita Mazepin spun going into Turn 1 and that brought out the yellow flags. When the final runs were completed Ocon who later said he had lost half a second due to the yellow flags went out in P16 ahead of Latifi. However, Q1’s major casualty was Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel who exited in P18, again because of the yellow flags. Haas’ Mick Schumacher went out in P19 ahead of team-mate Mazepin.

At the start of Q2 Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren and AlphaTauri took to the track on medium tires. Verstappen set an opening time of 1:30.318 to take an early P1, but that was swiftly bypassed by Hamilton who set a time of 1:30.085. Behind them Sergio Perez, in his first qualifying session with Red Bull, opened with a lap of 1:30.715 but the Mexican’s time was soon deleted for exceeding track limits, and he fell into the drop zone ahead of the final runs.

The Mexican went out on another set of medium tires but as quicker laps were posted by soft-tire runners Perez dropped back, and he eventually exited the session in P11 ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi, Tsunoda, the second Alfa or Kimi Räikkönen and Russell.

At the start of Q3 Verstappen took top spot in the first runs of the top-10 shootout, setting a provisional pole time of 1:29.526, just two hundredths of a second ahead of Hamilton.

Then, as the final runs began, Hamilton initially edged ahead with a lap of 1:29.385. Verstappen, though, was finding more and more time. A session-best first sector led to a purple time in the middle part of the lap and when the Red Bull driver crossed the line he claimed pole almost four tenths of a second ahead of Hamilton and almost seven tenths ahead of third-placed Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes. Fourth place in qualifying went to Leclerc, with the Monegasque finishing ahead of Gasly, Ricciardo, Norris, Sainz, the returning Alonso and Stroll.

Quotes

Red Bull

Max Verstappen, 1st, 1:28.997

“It’s a great feeling to be on pole and I haven’t experienced a season start like this. After the victory in Abu Dhabi the whole Team has been pushing really hard and even more motivated. There is still no guarantee for the rest of the year but everyone here and back at the factory have done a great job to give me a car like this and they should be very proud. Honda have also been working very hard this winter, just like every year. They are flat out all of the time and like us they just want to win. It is really enjoyable working with them and they are very passionate which I like, so a big credit to Honda for the result today as they have had a great winter. After testing it is always difficult to know where you are and we really didn’t know how it would be in qualifying but when you have a lap like that in Q3 and such a good feeling in the car you can be happy. We have to finish it off tomorrow but if I can have a good start I’m confident we can do a good job.”

Sergio Perez, 11th, 1:30.659

“Congratulations to Max and the Team on pole position as that’s the perfect way to start the season. On my side I wasn’t expecting to qualify in eleventh and obviously it’s not an ideal start but we are making progress and I made a good step between FP3 and qualifying, it just wasn’t enough. We were absolutely right to use the medium tires in Q2 but unfortunately it just didn’t pay off and I didn’t deliver the lap I should have. I went wide at Turn 13 and lost a couple of tenths and the field is so tight that it knocked me out of Q3. It’s a shame as the extra kilometers and comparison to Max would have helped me to progress but tomorrow is a new day and anything can happen around this track so hopefully we can make a good recovery.”

Christian Horner, Team Principal

“It’s fantastic to start the season this way, our first pole at the opening round since 2013 and Honda’s first since Senna in 1991. You never really know where you are at the first race of the year when the fuel comes out and the engine modes are turned up. It was nip and tuck in Q2 and it looked like Mercedes had a small advantage on the medium tire but then Max came back on the softs. Sergio was unfortunate to just miss out on making it through to Q3. He’s got a huge amount of maturity and experience and he’s adapting well. He’s only had 1.5 days of testing and everything is very new for him in terms of how the car feels, but he will be competitive in the race tomorrow and should not be counted out. The whole Team worked tremendously hard over the winter to put us in this position and Honda and ExxonMobil have also done a stellar job for us. Tomorrow is going to be very tight and Mercedes have turned it up, everyone wrote them off two weeks ago and they’re right up there as we expected. It will be a massive challenge for us to beat them but we’re starting from the best possible place.” 27: Sergio Perez of Mexico and Red Bull Racing prepares to drive in the garage during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain at Bahrain International Circuit on March 27, 2021 in Bahrain, Bahrain. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton, 2nd, 1:29.385

“Max did a great lap, nearly 0.4 is a big gap so we have some work to do! The car was feeling good in Q1 and Q2, we took until the last minute trying to find the right set-up and it felt sweet. Just at the end I couldn’t get any more from it but still, it was exciting. I’m immensely proud of everyone. We’ve worked very hard over the last week to try and understand the package that we have. We made some steps forward but we couldn’t compete with that last lap Max did. P2 puts us in a position to cause Red Bull trouble tomorrow.”

Valtteri Bottas, 3rd, 1:29.586

“Today was a lot better than testing. Throughout qualifying I was feeling more and more comfortable. At least we are closer to Red Bull than we were in testing. We have two cars to battle against one Red Bull tomorrow. I had to use two sets of tires in Q1 so I only had one new set for Q3 which put me at a disadvantage. But starting from third at this track isn’t bad so I’m looking forward to it. Red Bull seem to have more stability, particularly in the wind. We have two cars in the top three so we can definitely still fight for the win.”

Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport

“We are very excited to have a real fight on our hands. Six different teams in the top 10 today and it’s clear that simply being “good” will not be good enough this year. But in the final year of these regulations you need to push the needle further to not only beat Red Bull but also some of the other teams. It’s just what the doctor ordered!”

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

“It’s disappointing at the first race to be looking at a 0.4s gap to pole but at least we know the performance we need to find going forward. It’s also no secret that we’ve been struggling with the car around this circuit; it’s nowhere near as easy to work with as the W11 but everyone in Brackley and Brixworth has been working hard since the test and we’ve learned a lot about the W12 and found a more predicable balance, even if we’re lacking overall pace. We’d wanted to get both cars onto the medium tire to start the race which we managed to quite safely. Valtteri was a bit compromised in the final session by having used an extra soft in the first session but overall, it was good effort by the team and drivers, and should put us in a strong position for tomorrow. It’s hard to read where we are on race pace from the Friday long runs as we didn’t land the car in the right window but we’re fairly confident we’ve improved the rear grip so it will be less of a handful in the race. We might not be on pole but we have two cars at the front and an extra set of the hard tires, so hopefully we can create some opportunities from

Ferrari

Charles Leclerc, 4th, 1:29.678

“We know now where we are in terms of qualy pace and it’s a pleasant surprise, as we didn’t expect to be here, but today we need to keep our feet on the ground. It’s only the first qualy of the year and its run in very strange conditions. I think we should be satisfied as a team with the step we made since last year, so to be so far forward on the grid feels great. I have been struggling in FP2 and FP3 as I could not find the feeling with the car but I worked quite a lot on the driving and in qualy I was actually quite confident I would be able to do the lap I wanted.

“I feel confident for tomorrow but it’s going to be difficult as other cars around us seem to be very strong in terms of race pace and are starting on mediums, so it’s going to be tricky to keep them behind. Also, it’s not going to be easy because of the wind, but that’s the same for everyone.”

Carlos Sainz, 8th, 1:30.215

“A very positive day for the team. I think we can be happy with where we are. We had that very big shock in Q1, with the car turning off, but thankfully I could start it again and made it to the pits. It’s not always easy to recover from that, but we managed to have a very strong Q2. I’m obviously not happy with my last attempt in Q3. I went for it, but I’m probably lacking a bit more knowledge on the car and I couldn’t put together a clean lap. It is what it is. In general, though, I’m happy. I’ve been improving throughout the sessions, with good pace and very few mistakes so I want to keep gaining experience with the car and building confidence on a one-timed lap.

“There will be time to analyze qualifying in depth next week, but now I want to switch my full focus to tomorrow’s race. I’m looking forward to my first ever race with the team and we’ll give our best to gain positions and finish as high as possible.”

Laurent Mekies, Racing Director

“A good qualifying session, with both drivers getting through to the final part: something we have not seen since Silverstone last year. Charles, Carlos and the whole team have tackled the start of the season working methodically and with determination, going into the smallest detail to get all the potential out of the package. Today, we saw the first fruits of this work and we hope to see more tomorrow, when the points are given out. We know there’s still a lot of work to be done, but we cannot deny that the first real comparison with our opponents proves that our efforts seem to be going in the right direction, although a clearer picture of the hierarchy will only emerge after three or four races. Now we have to focus on preparing for what will be a long and difficult race, run in conditions that could be very different to those we have seen so far this weekend.”

AlphaTauri

Pierre Gasly, 5th, 1:29.809

“I’m really pleased with my performance today, it’s one of my best qualifying positions I’ve had with the team. For the first race of the year it’s important for us to show some good potential for the season ahead and I think we’ve managed to do that today. Only using the medium tire in Q2 was a huge risk, but we managed to make it work, and hopefully we can use this to our advantage tomorrow in the race. I’ll try to make the most of the position we’re starting from on the grid– I think there’s clearly an opportunity for us and I will do everything possible to get as many points as I can for the team.”

Yuki Tsunoda, 13th, 1:31.203

“I’m a bit disappointed if I’m honest, I showed I had the pace on the medium tire in Q1 and I felt confident with our strategy going into Q2, but I just didn’t have the grip during those final laps. It’s a shame to not be starting the race further up the grid but we know the race pace is there, so let’s see what we can do tomorrow. I’ll analyze the data tonight with my engineers, ahead of the race tomorrow, as I am continuing to learn from every lap that I complete. There are still lots of positives to take-away from today – it was my first Formula 1 qualifying session and I’m feeling confident in the car. I think we’re still in a reasonable position and have the potential to make our way forward during the race.”

Jody Egginton, Technical Director

“We were fairly happy with the performance of both car’s this morning – having dealt with the problem on Yuki’s car overnight – and both drivers seemed happy with their cars during FP3. Qualifying takes place during cooler track conditions here in Bahrain, but both cars performed well in Q1. Yuki and Pierre completed strong laps on the soft tire, so we decided to optimize the race-start sets, by having both cars on to the medium compound for Q2. Pierre made that work – he was one of four drivers to get through to Q3 on the mediums – however, Yuki wasn’t able to extract the best from the tire in the second session. He’s put in a really good performance already this weekend, so I’m really pleased with that. Pierre had two strong runs on the soft tire in Q3 and is starting in a good place tomorrow to pick up some great points. I’m really looking forward to the race now. 27: Yuki Tsunoda of Japan driving the (22) Scuderia AlphaTauri AT02 Honda leaves the garage during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain at Bahrain International Circuit on March 27, 2021 in Bahrain, Bahrain. (Photo by Peter Fox/Getty Images)

McLaren

Daniel Ricciardo, 6th, 1:29.927

“It’s a pleasant relief to get the first quali out of the way and get a decent result. I think, after the test, I was fairly comfortable in the car but probably more so on long runs. I still felt that, if anything, my Saturdays were going to need improving – and I think they still do – but I certainly made a nice step from a couple of weeks ago and I’m happy. We’ve got a good platform to build on now, I’m really happy with how we approached it as a team, not putting too much pressure on me. We were a bit off the pace yesterday, but they could see I was just trying to figure it out.

“I don’t want to do somersaults or backflips just yet, but it’s certainly a nice start for the campaign and I think we’ll do alright tomorrow. There’s a mix of cars around us, so I’m looking forward to that, and with Lando alongside hopefully we can get some big points for the team and start the year right.”

Lando Norris, 7th, 1:29.974

“Tricky qualifying, just because it’s very close between everyone. First one of the season, so I think we’re pretty happy with sixth and seventh for the team and getting to see where the car is – it’s a good position for tomorrow. It’s probably a bit more of a race track than a qualifying track, so hopefully, after focusing a little bit on that throughout the weekend, we can be strong tomorrow.”

Andreas Seidl, Team Principal

“We’ve got off to a good start in our first qualifying session of the year. Great work from the whole team, along with our colleagues from Mercedes, which allowed us to execute three very good qualifying sessions. Both drivers put in excellent laps to get us into Q3 and then to P6 and P7 on the grid. We saw the expected close battle between ourselves and several other teams – and that makes for an exciting race tomorrow. Our long runs have been good so far, both in testing and free practice, so we’re going into the race confident in our ability to compete for good points.”

Alpine

Fernando Alonso, 9th, 1:30.249

“We have to be pleased with our qualifying session today. I wasn’t totally confident with the car balance in any of the practice sessions this weekend. In qualifying, though, the temperature was a lot cooler and I was able to attack and feel the car a little bit better. It was really exciting to drive these cars again with low fuel and peak performance from the tires. Qualifying is always amazing to experience in Formula 1 and I have missed that feeling! The plan for tomorrow is to attack and score points. We’ll try to make up some positions from our starting spot but we have to be wary of the cars around us as some of our competitors are starting on the medium tires so it will be a close race.”

Esteban Ocon, 16th, 1:31.724

“It was a very disappointing qualifying on our side of the garage. Unfortunately, the yellow flag meant I had to lift off through sector two and I lost quite a lot of lap time as a result. It’s unfortunate as there was pace for a lot more today. I think as a team we’ve worked well all weekend during the practice sessions and had a good set up on the car for qualifying, so it’s disappointing not to show our potential. Tomorrow, we still target points. Anything can happen and we’ll push hard to make up some places and comeback. The weekend is not over.”

Davide Brivio, Racing Director

“We have mixed emotions after today’s qualifying with Fernando in ninth and Esteban in 16th. On a positive side, it was nice to see Fernando going into Q3 and that’s a good start to the season for him. However, it was bad luck for Esteban to not make it further than Q1 with a yellow flag hindering his second run. The potential was there for a solid team result. Tomorrow is race day and we’ll try to push even more. We’ve made gains in each session so far this weekend, so let’s see what happens when the lights go out.”

Aston Martin

Sebastian Vettel, 18th, 1:32.056

“I think it is fair to say the result today is disappointing and not what we wanted. My first lap in Q1 had quite a bit of margin for improvement, but on my second run there were two yellow flags, which made it impossible to progress to Q2. There was a yellow flag at turn one and one later in the lap too. I was just unlucky with my position on the track. On a positive note, the car felt better in qualifying and all the work we have done since testing is taking us in a good direction, so we have the potential to be faster. Even though we are not starting where we want to be, it is tomorrow that counts. Our job is to maximize all the opportunities and see what happens.”

Lance Stroll, 10th, 1:30.601

“It was a good fight out there today and it is clear that the midfield has become even closer this year because a lost tenth or two will put you in Q2. The AMR21 felt good, but we have got plenty of work ahead to keep improving and to try and push back towards the top end of Q3. I am really excited to get going for tomorrow’s race because the first race is always a little bit unpredictable and exciting. We are starting inside the top 10 and with a good start, strong tire management and well executed strategy, we can target some good points tomorrow. We just need to go away tonight, get our heads down, and keep on improving our understanding of the car.”

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal & CEO

“Lance performed well and did a good job to make it into Q3 today, while Sebastian’s result was out of his hands to a large extent. In Q3, our tire strategy meant Lance was only able to run once, but 10th on the grid leaves him well placed for tomorrow and he will be in the hunt for points. Sebastian was unfortunate to come across two yellow flags on his final push lap, which ultimately cost him a place in Q2. Overtaking is possible here so we will try our best to use strategy to help Sebastian fight his way through the field tomorrow.”

Alfa Romeo

Kimi Raikkonen, 14th, 1:31.238

“Not a bad result for the first qualifying of the year: of course, it could have been a bit better, as I made a couple of small mistakes here and there in my laps, but it could have been a lot worse. We made a few changes to the car after the morning to anticipate the conditions and perhaps they didn’t work as well as we expected, but we are still in a good position for the race. We’ll need to see how the weather is tomorrow, do our best and see what we can get out of the race. We are confident our package is better and we can fight for a good result.”

Antonio Giovinazzi, 12th, 1:30.708

“We can be really happy with this result as tomorrow we will start just outside the top 10 and with a free choice of tires. We have a very good opportunity to achieve a good result as we saw how our performance was close to the cars ahead of us. Today helps us confirm the positive feeling we had after testing: we have improved compared to last year and we feel we can have a lot more fun this season. Our focus is now all on tomorrow: it will be tricky, especially with the wind, but we can bring home a good result. We need to put everything together – strategy, start, pit stops – and get the maximum out of our cars, but we can definitely aim for the points.”

Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal

“Our target was to put both cars in Q2 and we did it. We even got really close to the top 10 and to miss out on Q3 for less than a tenth really shows the progress we have made compared to last year. It’s a good reward for the team after the good work put in over the winter. We have proven that our optimism after testing was well-founded and that we can be a lot more competitive this season. There’s still a lot of work to be done, however. We need to keep fine tuning our package to be able to be consistently in the top ten and regularly fight for points, but we have definitely made some big moves in the right direction.”

Williams

George Russell, 15th, 1:33.430

“That performance was the absolute maximum today and I am really happy. Even though we have made a step closer to the front of the field, the Alfa has made an even greater step, so I wasn’t expecting to get into Q2 today. I am really pleased we managed to put a clean lap together, get the most out of it and sneak into Q2. It’s going to be a tough, long race but we need to capitalize where we can and not make any mistakes.”

Nicholas Latifi, 17th, 1:31.936

“It was tough today and I am not completely satisfied. We have been struggling all weekend to find the right balance of the car, as well as get some consistency and drivability. However, the qualifying session for me was the best the car has felt so far this weekend. The wind switched around 180 degrees and the car handled completely differently, but I still struggled out there. It will be a long and exciting race tomorrow though and we will see what we can do.”

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance

“Following a solid practice session in the heat of the afternoon, both drivers were reasonably happy with their cars and ready for the qualifying session. We knew that the tires would behave differently in the cooler conditions of the evening and we were also conscious of the big change in wind direction. To get the most out of the Q1 session we opted to complete three runs so that each driver could get a feel for the different conditions before they attacked the final run hard and with confidence. We had mixed fortunes with the yellow flags at the end of Q1 with Nicholas being unable to use DRS on the final straight as a result, but George largely unaffected.

“George completed an excellent lap and, with some drivers missing out due to the yellows, he set a time quick enough for a place in Q2. Our decision to run three times in Q1 meant that we had no new Soft tires left, but nonetheless, making Q2 was an excellent result and we can now plan to race with the Alfa Romeos and possibly with Tsunoda. Nicky couldn’t quite extract the same performance as George on this occasion, but he will start only two places back, and given his strong high fuel pace, he has an excellent chance to race with George.

“The last couple of weeks in Bahrain have been intense and busy, but the team have worked very hard and as a result achieved a creditable result today, outpacing some fundamentally quicker cars. The dedication of all those who have been in Bahrain since the test, as well as all those who have supported from the UK, is outstanding and testament to a great team spirit.”

Haas

Mick Schumacher, 19th, 1:32.449

“I enjoyed the experience a lot. In general, I was happy with my performance today, I’d say I was about 95 percent happy with my lap. I had one little moment with it where I felt I could have done better. To be honest, after having had a disruptive run, it was kind of okay. The car had felt good coming from FP3 and the communication with the team was really good. There’s definitely room for improvement on my side, so I’m just looking forward to being able to get into another qualifying soon. The race is going to be interesting as we see how the cars are going to behave in windier conditions. My main focus is to learn and to gain experience and build on that for the future.”

Nikita Mazepin, 20th, 1:33.273

“The conditions in qualifying were very tricky, they’d changed a lot from FP3. Obviously, the temperature had dropped down and the wind had turned around, and these Formula 1 cars are very wind-affected. I had an issue with my brake-by-wire and I locked-up on the rears at Turn 1. The pedal just went long, it’s something we need to look into. It wasn’t something I expected, and I hadn’t had it happen before driving in the test here or in practice. Hopefully that won’t happen tomorrow. There’s still plenty to look for but this was always going to be difficult coming into qualifying.”

Guenther Steiner, Team Principal

“We were pretty happy with our performance earlier in FP3. We got everything done that we wanted to do – it was difficult circumstances with the heat, but the guys did a good job. Then in qualifying, maybe not everybody saw, but we had both cars stopped on the FIA weighbridge. We wanted to do three runs each with both cars, but the time gets very short to do them – we couldn’t do all that. With Nikita, with rushing, something went wrong with his brake-by-wire setting. That’s when on his third attempt he spun – his rear brakes locked up. All-in-all the result doesn’t look great, but the guys now have their first qualifying under their belt. They experienced about all the issues you can have in qualifying – not least both of them getting stopped on the weighbridge, that was a new one for us. At least they know how do to that now.”

Pirelli

Mario Isola, Head of F1 and Car Racing

“Once more there was a big difference between the day and night sessions, which made the strategy and set-up calculations more complicated. There are a number of possible race strategies, depending also on the tires each driver has available. Nonetheless, there were several teams that felt the medium tire was the best option to start the race on tomorrow: four of the top 10 will start the race on the yellow medium C3 compound, including the top three, and this will give them more strategic options. However, there are a number of options and the cooler temperatures expected tomorrow might mix up the strategies even more. The new Formula 2 format, with two races today, were also interesting. There were some impressive runs on the soft tire in the second race especially, as part of an alternative strategy that helped some drivers make big gains from the back of the field – influenced also by the safety car.”

Qualifying Results