2021 Bahrain Grand Prix grid

2021 Bahrain Grand Prix

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Max Verstappen has taken pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.

Row 11. Max Verstappen 1’28.997
Red Bull
2. Lewis Hamilton 1’29.385
Mercedes
Row 23. Valtteri Bottas 1’29.586
Mercedes
4. Charles Leclerc 1’29.678
Ferrari
Row 35. Pierre Gasly 1’29.809
AlphaTauri
6. Daniel Ricciardo 1’29.927
McLaren
Row 47. Lando Norris 1’29.974
McLaren
8. Carlos Sainz Jnr 1’30.215
Ferrari
Row 59. Fernando Alonso 1’30.249
Alpine
10. Lance Stroll 1’30.601
Aston Martin
Row 611. Sergio Perez 1’30.659
Red Bull
12. Antonio Giovinazzi 1’30.708
Alfa Romeo
Row 713. Yuki Tsunoda 1’31.203
AlphaTauri
14. Kimi Raikkonen 1’31.238
Alfa Romeo
Row 815. George Russell 1’33.430
Williams
16. Esteban Ocon 1’31.724
Alpine
Row 917. Nicholas Latifi 1’31.936
Williams
18. Mick Schumacher 1’32.449
Haas
Row 1019. Nikita Mazepin 1’33.273
Haas
20. Sebastian Vettel 1’32.056
Aston Martin

Penalties

Vettel: Five-place grid drop for failing to observe double waved yellow flags

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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45 comments on “2021 Bahrain Grand Prix grid”

  1. Nikita MassiveSpin

    1. Accurate.

    2. Nick it amaze spin!

    3. Just one more hint he shouldn’t be there.

  2. So hyped for this season

  3. What a surprise… A continuation of the end of last season.
    It is early but I don’t know who thought Perez could do it, who thought Sainz was that special and Daniel after a shaky start did beat Norris already.
    Alonso doing his thing.
    Shades of abu dhabi.

    1. Sainz close to Leclerc on his first qualy with Ferrari. Perez very far from pole, is he suddenly a bad driver? Or the second RedBull is crap. You want to see a gap Stroll vs Vettel

      1. Russel v Latiffi another big gap

      2. What do you mean close? It was more than half a second..

        1. Sainz made an error going into T1. His S2 and S3 times were pretty similar. Had he not, the gap would’ve been much smaller although still behind Leclerc.

    2. The Perez situation looks worse than it really is. The medium tyre is a lot slower, so it was quite risky from Red Bull to send a new driver out on those tyres while we have no idea what the order of teams is at the moment

      1. Yeah, and how we know Perez, he could well get back into the mix at around the midway point of the race too @paeschli

        1. Since Perez is starting 11th, and can do so on whatever tyres he wants, does he have any Mediums left.?
          Irony is that is what he was trying to do for his race start tyres.
          With only a moderate amount of luck, he can definitely get into the mix by half distance.
          Go Checo.!

    3. Woodrow Wilkins
      27th March 2021, 23:26

      “I don’t know who thought Perez could do it”? Geez, settle down dude, it’s the first race, first qualifying, he was sent out on mediums, plus the race hasn’t even been run … do you recall Bahrain 2020?

  4. An interesting QLF and mixed field.

  5. Waiting for everyone who was rubbishing Mercedes for saying what they already knew to have their say now.

  6. Great Lap Max. Hats off👏
    Looking forward to a great race and a great season! Signs are really good for a challenging season. Race 3 will let us know for sure. Same situation for RB driver No 2. Regardless, kudos goes to Max today. 👍

  7. Hamilton seems to have the measure of the Merc in a way that Bottas hasn’t yet. And, not that surprisingly, yet another highly skilled driver finds the Red Bull to be a bit of a handful.

    Big news for me was just how strong the Alpha Tauri looks. Terrific showing from Pierre Gasly.

    Looking forward to tomorrow!

    1. The reality is the Mclaren engineers and the Pink Mercedes could see Checo’s data…and they were not impressed. He had a lot of fanboys last year backing him..even Brundle! Albon will be back in the car after race 3..Checo got away with poor driving because he never had a Max..you can’t have a team mate on pole when you can’t get into Q3..Gasly in the baby bull is way up the road from Checo..Checo’s body language and confidence was real bad already and will drop to zero after Max wins tomorrow and he fails to score points..what next?

  8. Red bull/Mercedes
    Ferrari/McLaren/Alpha tauri
    Alpine/Aston Martin/Alfa Romeo
    Williams/Haas

  9. Woo Hoo!!! Awesome!

  10. Ferrari only 3 tenths slower than Mercedes! Not too shabby!

  11. Congratulation to Verstappen, well done, he proves that given a good enough or equal performance car, he could beat Mercedes. Been year after year he’s lone challenger to the Mercedes. Thanks to Red Bull for fantastic car, and Honda for equal to Mercedes or the better engine this year.

  12. K Max, but also Leclerc star of qualifying for sure. Wasn’t expecting that, although Sam Collins predicted it.

    1. @john-h
      He did the exact same tactic of last year’s Sakhir GP. Get in Q3 using all the soft tyres but one set and doing one clean flying lap in the end of the session.

  13. Btw, 5 different constructors in the top 6. Good to see.

  14. Suprised to see Perez out in Q2 – had suspected he’d struggle but didn’t expect that. The idea of swapping Albon/Gasly out for a driver that could have consistency, could run at the front with Verstappen and help with strategy to overhaul Mercedes already didn’t work. I really do feel Red Bull ejected Albon far too quickly and Gasly in 5th really makes me think they promoted the wrong 2020 race winner. Then again maybe Mark Webber laid a curse on the second Red Bull seat? It seems a poisoned chalice no matter who takes it.

    1. Isn’t Max in the second Red Bull seat after joining Daniel in the team? I think he pretty much ended the curse there ;-)

    2. @rocketpanda Surely you can’t be serious about this after one quali session? Sure he went wide and had to go out again and they chose mediums for him as that would have been the preferred tire to start on, and it just didn’t work out. That’s just part of the ‘him learning the car and the team learning him, and him needing 5 races as he said’ concept that I thought we all understood. You already writing him off is frankly ridiculous.

      Gasly in fifth, engrained at AT, is awesome as is what Tsunoda showed, namely imho that the Honda pu is awesome, and the car is still relatively easy to drive, but to say from this one session it should have been Gasly not Perez in that seat is way way jumping the gun, and surprising from you to say after one quali.

      1. Yeah that was just unlucky. But good confidence by Perez. I’m sure he’ll come good. Not as in right behind Verstappen, but as the best option.

    3. Perez result was bad due to pitlane choices mostly. The Q2 time was reasonable, 3 tents behind Verstappen on Mediums, but every midfield car did their laps on Softs and Perez was too tight on timing for another speed lap or a lap on Softs. Doesnt look bad starting on Mediums with a fast car and everybody up to 4th place on Softs for a guy known as a finesse sunday racer.

      1. Excuses by Perez fanboys..this is red bull. The other car is on pole after being fastest FP1-FP3..and you man is in P11! Perez will be out by race 3. The trouble is you cant be asking for softs when Max and the Mercs get through on Mediums with time to spare..remember he isn’t being compared to Aston Martin, McLaren or even Ferrari..He needs to beat the Mercs. Wasn’t Bottas meant to be the weakest link? Do you see him beating Hami and Bottas and Leclerc and Gasly at any of the races coming up? If he cant stay within .5 of Max he’ll always start in P6 which frankly in a Bull isn’t good enough. Russel was in P2 in his first Merc race by comparison..zero excuses at this level..this isn’t a rookie in a Haas or Toro Rosso. to think some said he would give Max some pain is laughable

      2. It was 3 tenths on an evolved track where everybody improved their times. All weekend he was 5 tenths behind, which is a bit too much of course.
        But as others sais, nonsense to rate him after one qualifying and as you said maybe 11th on medium tyres is better than 6th on softs. We’ll see!

  15. Alonso never disapoints.

    What a driver.

  16. Can we have the tyres the top 10 are on?
    If you have it posted somewhere I missed it.

  17. As long as it’s not a Mercedes on PP… fine with me.

    Obviously, we need few more races for a better judgement regarding certain situations/orders as things look too volatile. For example, I rate LEC higher than SAI and was kinda amazed to see Sainz at the same level or better than Leclerc on all sessions… until Q3. As most, I started to wonder if SAI is really better than I thought OR LEC worse. But, when it mattered – in Q3, I guess finally we’ve seen more or less the real situation. Same thing with STR vs VET, NOR vs RIC, VER vs PER.

    1. @mg1982 Perez is going to be annihilated by Verstappen on this showing. Red Bull are hardly a nurturing environment for a flailing driver. Sainz and Leclerc being closer than most expected doesn’t surprise me. Same goes for Ricciardo already outqualifying Norris. What struck me most were the performances of Gasly and Alonso.

  18. Mercedes’s weakness is said to be the final pace. If it is, then they’re fine.

    I didn’t pay too much attention to the winter tests this year, but everybody was saying their car was bad on the track. And now they’re already fighting for pole and giving the king of winter testing a fight for his money.

    Not bad at all.

  19. daniil! (@kvyatdeservesadrive)
    27th March 2021, 18:59

    Daniil should be in F1

  20. Perez was on medium tyres. Is so obvious that he didn’t get closer to the top for this reason. Micky mouse strategy…

  21. Can we find out who has the testing chassis and who has a new chassis for every team?

  22. No huge surprises in qualifying as such. I think we all expected a close battle between Max and the Mercs at the top. Max really put a mega lap in to take it by 0.4s.

    Mclaren and Ferrari are looking like they’ll be in the fight for 3rd in the WCC this season. Alpha Tauri showed some really strong pace as they did in pre season testing. I think they’re a bit of a welcome surprise. They look ahead of Aston and Alpine currently, so should be interesting how their season pans out.

    Disappointed that Red bull didn’t put Perez on softs in Q2. It was obvious he didn’t have Max’s pace. They should have played it safe and split the strategies. Leclerc put in a mega Q3 lap as well… Just a tenth of Bottas is impressive. Gasly seems to have developed in to a bit of a Bahrain specialist as well. Hats off to Alonso as well for getting that car in to Q3. He didn’t look great all weekend.. But pulled it all together in Q2 and Q3 like a pro.

    Should be cracking race tomorrow. We should have a good battle at the front, followed by an intense battle with Gasly, Ferraris and McLarens.

  23. Looks like Ferrari are moving up the grid and Aston Martin down the grid. Vettel is really starting to fade. Alonso driving like he never left F1. Ocon a disappointment again.

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