Max Verstappen has fulfilled Red Bull’s pre-season promise to defeat Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, in pole position for Sunday’s opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
Verstappen will start the race in first place in the grid, after beating Hamilton on Saturday night with the fastest time of 0.388, confirming the reversal of performance between the first two F1 teams in the winter.
The fight took place during the three training sessions in Bahrain and it was worth the wait, because the two pilots saved their best laps until the last attempt.
Hamilton initially defeated Verstappen Q3’s first attempt, but the 23-year-old hit back to occupy the fourth pole position of his career.
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Valtteri Bottas secured third place on the grid for Mercedes, ahead of the rebirth of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, which was less than 0.1 s from Bottas and will rank fourth.
Pierre Gasly took fifth place in the grid for AlphaTauri, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris’ two McLarens, who will line up at six and seven.
Carlos Sainz was the fastest driver in the second qualifying session, but failed to take part in the first ten shots when he counted, leaving him in eighth place and over half a second behind his teammate Leclerc.
Fernando Alonso finished 9th in his return to Formula 1 with Alpine ahead of Lance Stroll for Aston Martin.
Sergio Perez will start on the 11th place at his debut for Red Bull, after a bet to get out of the second qualifying session on the medium tires that did not bear fruit.
F1 qualifying rules stipulate that drivers who make the top ten must start the race on the set of tires they used to set their fastest time in Q2, and Red Bull wanted to make sure Perez is on top. more durable support for the start.
However, on his first attempt, Perez ran wide at turn 4, resulting in the elimination of his lap time, and on the second attempt he was 0.035 one place in Q3.
Perez will now have a free selection of tires in 11th place on the grid and will start ahead of Alfa Romeo by Antonio Giovinazzi in 12th place, beginner Alpha Tauri Yuki Tsunoda in 13th place and the most experienced driver in the grid, Kimi Raikkonen, ranked 15th in the second Alfa Romeo.
George Russell continued his impressive qualifying race last year, taking Williams out of Q1 to 15th place in the grid.
The second alpine driver, Esteban Ocon, missed a place in Q2 with less than a tenth of a second after a late turn for Nikita Mazepin in Q1 caused a yellow flag at turn 1, and Sainz’s Ferrari caused a flag yellow in sector two with a stuttering engine.
That will leave Ocon in 16th place on the grid, ahead of Nicholas Latifi and Sebastian Vettel’s second Williams, who will start in 18th place for his first race with Aston Martin, after being also caught by the yellow flags. which forced him to withdraw.
The back row will consist of the two debut Haas drivers, Mick Schumacher defeated teammate Mazepin in 19th place.