Formula One

Lewis Hamilton Claims Pole in Bahrain

Lewis Hamilton. 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix, Friday - Steve Etherington. Image from Mercedes Media Archives.

Lewis Hamilton with Mercedes won the pole position ahead of the 2020 Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix with a record-breaking lap time of 1:27.264. His teammate Valtteri Bottas secured the 11th Mercedes lockout of the season by coming in 2nd. Max Verstappen attempted to challenge the Silver Arrows but remained at almost half a second behind Lewis in P3 for Red Bull.

Despite his rather heavy crash from yesterday’s practice session, Alex Albon found some pace in his Red Bull and qualified 4th today. By doing so, however, Albon lost his 15th consecutive qualifying of the season to teammate Verstappen. Not a great achievement to put on his resume for the near future. Moving on, Sergio Perez with Racing Point came in 5th, while Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon finished in P6 and P7, respectively. Pierre Gasly with AlphaTauri qualified 8th, ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris. Gasly’s teammate Daniil Kvyat completed the top 10 Q3 contenders by finishing last in the session.

The second qualifying session was just a little bit more action than normally. With about 9 minutes left on the clock, Carlos Sainz’ McLaren decided to lock the rear axel at turn 1. Carlos was not able to get his vehicle going again, which forced the stewards to wave the red flags at everyone else. Interestingly, no driver had completed a flying lap prior to this incident. Many, however, were close to doing so, which undoubtedly affected their tire performance for the later stages of the session.

Unfortunately for Ferrari, this was not one of their best qualifying sessions. Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc would have to make their way in the race from starting 11th and 12th, respectively. To compare, both of them started in the front row in Bahrain last season. Today’s result once again affirms that Ferrari’s major car issues have not yet been resolved, despite the numerous upgrades and structure changes throughout the season. Following the Ferraris is the man who won the pole position in Turkey just a couple of weeks ago – Lance Stroll with Racing Point in P13. George Russell with Williams finished last in P14, while Carlos Sainz automatically gets the 15th place without a flying lap completion.

Q1 went as usual – Alfa, Haas and Williams struggling to continue ahead. As a result, Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen will place their Alfa Romeos in 16th and 17th for tomorrow’s race. Right behind them, Haas’ Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean qualified 18th and 19th, respectively. Nicolas Latifi with Williams came in last, which put his teammate George Russell just one step behind the all-time record for most consecutive qualifying battle victories – currently, a 36 – 0 for Russell.

Pole position lap: Lewis Hamilton – 1:27.264

You can access the complete official qualifying results HERE.

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