Max Verstappen has taken pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.
| Row 1 | 1. Max Verstappen 1’28.997 Red Bull | |
| 2. Lewis Hamilton 1’29.385 Mercedes | ||
| Row 2 | 3. Valtteri Bottas 1’29.586 Mercedes | |
| 4. Charles Leclerc 1’29.678 Ferrari | ||
| Row 3 | 5. Pierre Gasly 1’29.809 AlphaTauri | |
| 6. Daniel Ricciardo 1’29.927 McLaren | ||
| Row 4 | 7. Lando Norris 1’29.974 McLaren | |
| 8. Carlos Sainz Jnr 1’30.215 Ferrari | ||
| Row 5 | 9. Fernando Alonso 1’30.249 Alpine | |
| 10. Lance Stroll 1’30.601 Aston Martin | ||
| Row 6 | 11. Sergio Perez 1’30.659 Red Bull | |
| 12. Antonio Giovinazzi 1’30.708 Alfa Romeo | ||
| Row 7 | 13. Yuki Tsunoda 1’31.203 AlphaTauri | |
| 14. Kimi Raikkonen 1’31.238 Alfa Romeo | ||
| Row 8 | 15. George Russell 1’33.430 Williams | |
| 16. Esteban Ocon 1’31.724 Alpine | ||
| Row 9 | 17. Nicholas Latifi 1’31.936 Williams | |
| 18. Mick Schumacher 1’32.449 Haas | ||
| Row 10 | 19. 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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Depailler
27th March 2021, 16:03
Nikita MassiveSpin
Jere (@jerejj)
27th March 2021, 16:08
@Depailler Indeed.
Chris (@cgturbo)
27th March 2021, 16:18
Accurate.
Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
27th March 2021, 16:28
Nick it amaze spin!
emuLOAD
27th March 2021, 17:22
Just one more hint he shouldn’t be there.
Patrick (@paeschli)
27th March 2021, 16:04
So hyped for this season
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
27th March 2021, 16:05
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.
Olivier
27th March 2021, 16:08
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
Stevef1
27th March 2021, 16:09
Russel v Latiffi another big gap
Balue (@balue)
27th March 2021, 18:38
What do you mean close? It was more than half a second..
JMoney
27th March 2021, 19:44
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.
Patrick (@paeschli)
27th March 2021, 16:23
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
BasCB (@bascb)
27th March 2021, 18:02
Yeah, and how we know Perez, he could well get back into the mix at around the midway point of the race too @paeschli
NS Biker (@rekibsn)
27th March 2021, 18:21
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.!
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?
Jere (@jerejj)
27th March 2021, 16:09
An interesting QLF and mixed field.
sebsronnie (@sebsronnie)
27th March 2021, 16:10
Waiting for everyone who was rubbishing Mercedes for saying what they already knew to have their say now.
DeanR
27th March 2021, 16:10
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. 👍
Dkor (@dkor)
27th March 2021, 16:10
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!
lorrydriver1
27th March 2021, 16:25
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?
jay
27th March 2021, 16:11
Red bull/Mercedes
Ferrari/McLaren/Alpha tauri
Alpine/Aston Martin/Alfa Romeo
Williams/Haas
Robbie (@robbie)
27th March 2021, 16:11
Woo Hoo!!! Awesome!
carbon_fibre (@carbon_fibre)
27th March 2021, 16:12
Ferrari only 3 tenths slower than Mercedes! Not too shabby!
papaya
27th March 2021, 16:13
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.
John H (@john-h)
27th March 2021, 16:15
K Max, but also Leclerc star of qualifying for sure. Wasn’t expecting that, although Sam Collins predicted it.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
27th March 2021, 16:24
@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.
John H (@john-h)
27th March 2021, 16:17
Btw, 5 different constructors in the top 6. Good to see.
Balue (@balue)
27th March 2021, 18:39
Indeed
Adam (@rocketpanda)
27th March 2021, 16:40
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.
Vincent (@vinnivinni)
27th March 2021, 16:55
Isn’t Max in the second Red Bull seat after joining Daniel in the team? I think he pretty much ended the curse there ;-)
Robbie (@robbie)
27th March 2021, 17:25
@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.
Balue (@balue)
27th March 2021, 18:41
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.
jpvalverde85 (@jpvalverde85)
27th March 2021, 17:25
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.
Lorrydriver1
27th March 2021, 18:02
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
Ronald
27th March 2021, 18:43
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!
Edvaldo
27th March 2021, 16:42
Alonso never disapoints.
What a driver.
Eoin (@e20in00)
27th March 2021, 17:10
Can we have the tyres the top 10 are on?
If you have it posted somewhere I missed it.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
27th March 2021, 17:19
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.
David BR (@david-br)
27th March 2021, 19:02
@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.
Edvaldo
27th March 2021, 17:28
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.
daniil! (@kvyatdeservesadrive)
27th March 2021, 18:59
Daniil should be in F1
Fresillo
27th March 2021, 19:10
Perez was on medium tyres. Is so obvious that he didn’t get closer to the top for this reason. Micky mouse strategy…
Win7Golf (@win7golf)
28th March 2021, 4:07
Can we find out who has the testing chassis and who has a new chassis for every team?
Todfod (@todfod)
28th March 2021, 4:57
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.
kpcart
28th March 2021, 7:16
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.