Brendan Lines December 6, 2020
Valtteri Bottas claimed his fifth pole position of the 2020 season and second at Bahrain alongside super sub George Russell, who turned his first ever Q3 appearance into P2 on the grid, securing the 12th Mercedes front row lockout of the season ahead of Red Bulls’ Max Verstappen in P3.
Bottas has shouldered the leadership role at Mercedes admirably in the absence of Lewis Hamilton who tested positive to COVID-19, the Fin secured pole from his stand-in teammate and denied Verstappen who lead the time sheets in Q2.
“It’s great to be on pole, I’m happy with that, but this wasn’t my best qualifying. My second run in Q3 was decent, but I think there was still a bit of time missing in Turn 7 and 8,” Bottas said after qualifying.
“I was the first car out on track on the final run, so I didn’t have a tow and ultimately couldn’t improve. It was fairly close in the end, so I’m pleased it was enough for pole position,” Bottas said after qualifying.
“It’s great to see George in P2 and that we managed to lock out the front row for the team. I’m not really surprised to see him up there, he kept improving throughout the weekend and particularly through qualifying.
“We’re starting on the Medium tyre tomorrow, which should put us in a good position in terms of strategy.
“Max is going to have an advantage for the race start itself with the softer tyre, but we think for the race overall we’re on the better tyre. The track is quite bumpy and it’s actually fairly easy to follow other cars thanks to the tow, but we’re in the best possible position for tomorrow and are looking forward to a fun race.”
Russell was impressive, keeping hot on the heels of Bottas with every lap, the 22-year old Brit was just 16 thousandths down on Bottas in Q2, ultimately just missing pole by 20 millliseconds – it’s the first time Russell has ever been out-qualified by any teammate in three seasons of Formula 1.
“Obviously, I’m a bit gutted to miss out on pole by 20 milliseconds, but if you’d told me last week that I’d be qualifying P2 on the grid, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Russell said.
“I’ve got nobody in front of me tomorrow, which I’ve not experienced for a long time. It’s going to be a really tricky race on such a short track layout, but we’re in a good position starting on the Mediums. I’ll give it my all and see what I can do.”
For Verstappen it was an opportunity that went begging topping the time sheets in FP3 and challenging Mercedes throughout qualifying.
“Close, but not quite close enough. We can be happy about qualifying, and although we always want more, for us to be P3 on a track like this is pretty good,” Verstappen said.
“The gap is very close and it is a bit of a shame to miss out by so little. On such a short lap it was always going to be very tight but I think I got the most out of the lap.”
Verstappen will be with the support of his teammate Alex Albon who will start from P12 on the grid, Albon narrowly escaped elimination from Q1.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc’s blinding opening lap in Q3 of 53.613s locked away an unexpected P4, Ferrari chose not to run Leclerc’s car again, it appeared Ferrari postured to its rivals ‘Beat that,’ but with limited sets of Soft tyres available for the race it was a calculated risk – teammate Sebastian Vettel will start from p13 on the grid.
Racing Point’s Sergio Perez put in another solid performance taking P5, out-qualifying teammate Lance Stroll (P10) by six tenths of a second, both Racing Point cars in the top ten is a firm footing in the constructor’s points battle against the lone rival cars of McLaren and Renault
Alpha Tauri’s Daniil Kvyat performed his best qualifying effort for the season taking P6 ahead of teammate Pierre Gasly in P9, the Alpha Tauri’s split by Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo (P7) and Mc Laren’s Carlos Sainz in P8.
The Sakhir Grand Prix begins 3:40am ACDST Monday.
Full qualifying results:
| Pos | No | Driver | Car | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 53.904 | 53.803 | 53.377 | 24 |
| 2 | 63 | George Russell | Mercedes | 54.160 | 53.819 | 53.403 | 25 |
| 3 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing Honda | 54.037 | 53.647 | 53.433 | 17 |
| 4 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 54.249 | 53.825 | 53.613 | 21 |
| 5 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Racing Point BWT Mercedes | 54.236 | 53.787 | 53.790 | 17 |
| 6 | 26 | Daniil Kvyat | AlphaTauri Honda | 54.346 | 53.856 | 53.906 | 26 |
| 7 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Renault | 54.388 | 53.871 | 53.957 | 15 |
| 8 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | McLaren Renault | 54.450 | 53.818 | 54.010 | 20 |
| 9 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri Honda | 54.207 | 53.941 | 54.154 | 28 |
| 10 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Racing Point BWT Mercedes | 54.595 | 53.840 | 54.200 | 19 |
| 11 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Renault | 54.309 | 53.995 | 13 | |
| 12 | 23 | Alexander Albon | Red Bull Racing Honda | 54.620 | 54.026 | 12 | |
| 13 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 54.301 | 54.175 | 17 | |
| 14 | 99 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo Racing Ferrari | 54.523 | 54.377 | 14 | |
| 15 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren Renault | 54.194 | 54.693 | 15 | |
| 16 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas Ferrari | 54.705 | 9 | ||
| 17 | 6 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams Mercedes | 54.796 | 11 | ||
| 18 | 89 | Jack Aitken | Williams Mercedes | 54.892 | 9 | ||
| 19 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Alfa Romeo Racing Ferrari | 54.963 | 11 | ||
| 20 | 51 | Pietro Fittipaldi | Haas Ferrari | 55.426 | 11 |
Q1 107% time – 57.677
Note – Fittipaldi required to start from back of grid for use of additional power unit elements.
Grandprixnet.com 