Charles Leclerc handed Ferrari their 231st pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix Saturday, and their first since Azerbaijan last year. It gives Ferrari the first pole position in the new era of Formula One beginning this year.
It’s the best qualifying performance for Ferrari this decade, with Leclerc holding pole position and Carlos Sainz starting third. The Monegasque driver scored his tenth pole in the series.
“Yeah, it feels good,” said Leclerc. “I mean, the last few years have been incredibly difficult for the team. I think we have worked extremely hard as a team to bring ourselves into a position where we are able to compete.”
“From the driving point, it’s completely different compared to last year,” he added. “I’ve tried many driving styles and still need to find the perfect one.” However, he said pole position “feels quite good. Now we need to finish the weekend on a high tomorrow, it’s not going to be easy.”
Max Verstappen missed out on pole by a tenth behind Charles Leclerc, and only beat the other Ferrari of Carlos Sainz by a matter of thousandths of a second.
“I think it was a bit of hit-and-miss,” Verstappen said. “Q3 was a bit of a struggle, but I think it was alright. We have a good racecar: not fantastic, but also not too bad, otherwise you cannot be in this position. I will try to do better for next time.” He said he hoped for “an exciting race” with the shakeup.
Sainz had shaved the deficit to his teammate all weekend as he struggled with the car. He wasn’t able to do any better than a tenth deficit, only good enough for third.
The Spaniard said he’s “really struggling with this car. Not managing to extract that last tenth is a pity, but it’s deserved: Charles has done a great job all weekend. I just don’t understand the car fully yet.”
Lewis Hamilton could only manage a fifth-place start in his Mercedes, behind both Ferraris and Red Bulls, while his teammate George Russel finished ninth.
Haas put two cars into the second round of qualifying for the first time since 2019. Kevin Magnussen was seventh-fastest in the second round and will start the race 7th, while Mick Schumacher also pulled off his best-ever qualifying in 12th.
Alfa Romeo also pulled off an equally-impressive qualifying performance. New driver Zhou Ghaunyu brought last year’s backmarkers up to 15th, while Valterri Bottas got to the final round and will start 6th.
Conversely, McLaren will be unhappy with their qualifying performance. Coming off an impressive season last year, Lando Norris will start in 12th, not having made it to Q3. Ricciardo said missing the entire second test session with a positive coronavirus test result was difficult, as was “coming here in different conditions and different style of circuit,” which “threw different issues at us.”
| POS | DRIVER | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1:31.471 | 1:30.932 | 1:30.558 | ||
| 2 | 1:31.785 | 1:30.757 | 1:30.681 | |
| 3 | 1:31.567 | 1:30.787 | 1:30.687 | |
| 4 | 1:32.311 | 1:31.008 | 1:30.921 | |
| 5 | 1:32.285 | 1:31.048 | 1:31.238 | |
| 6 | 1:31.919 | 1:31.717 | 1:31.560 | |
| 7 | 1:31.955 | 1:31.461 | 1:31.808 | |
| 8 | 1:32.346 | 1:31.621 | 1:32.195 | |
| 9 | 1:32.269 | 1:31.252 | 1:32.216 | |
| 10 | 1:32.096 | 1:31.635 | 1:32.338 | |
| 11 | 1:32.041 | 1:31.782 | ||
| 12 | 1:32.380 | 1:31.998 | ||
| 13 | 1:32.239 | 1:32.008 | ||
| 14 | 1:32.726 | 1:32.664 | ||
| 15 | 1:32.493 | 1:33.543 | ||
| 16 | 1:32.750 | |||
| 17 | 1:32.777 | |||
| 18 | 1:32.945 | |||
| 19 | 1:33.032 | |||
| 20 | 1:33.634 |
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