Bahrain: Qualifications Seen from the Stands

Mercedes

Nico Rosberg – Pole position

Lewis Hamilton – 4th [9th on the grid]

Ross Brawn, Team Principal: As a team, we turned the situation around well after two complicated practice sessions yesterday. None of our drivers were happy, and together with the engineers, they did a great job to put us in a better position today. Nico delivered a fantastic lap to secure pole position. I said earlier in the season that I believe we have the best driver line-up and they are proving it with their performances. Lewis had a few issues this morning but managed things well and was the 4th fastest in qualifying. He will drop 5 places on the grid tomorrow, but we can still expect a good race from him. We know tomorrow’s race could be different and perhaps today’s cooler conditions played in our favor, so we’ll see how it goes.

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Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – 2nd

Mark Webber – 5th [7th on the grid]

Christian Horner, Team Principal: It was a very tight and competitive qualifying session. We stuck to the plan we had devised before qualifying, using a set of mediums during each part. Sebastian did a great job to qualify on the front row alongside Nico Rosberg. Mark, despite his three-place penalty, will start in 7th position and with the overtaking opportunities at this circuit, he should be able to move up. So a good qualifying session and one on which we hope to build for tomorrow. Congratulations to Nico on his pole today.

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Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 3rd

Felipe Massa – 6th [4th on the grid]

Pat Fry, Technical Director: « It was a reasonably straightforward qualifying session to interpret today, and the good starting positions we have mean that we are optimistic for tomorrow’s race, and also reward the entire team for their efforts in improving our qualifying performance.

Regarding the improvements we made in Bahrain, we decided to keep only the most important ones while we will introduce the others in the upcoming races. We are not yet where we want to be, but today’s gaps indicate that our work is going in the right direction and that we must continue this way.

Tomorrow, for the third consecutive time, Fernando will start from third place on the grid, which is on the clean side of the track here, and we hope this can be an advantage at the start. Felipe’s fourth place is a very good base from which to build a race where he will be on a different strategy from his teammate, as he opted for Hard tires in Q3. Once again, we can expect a Sunday where drivers will have to pay special attention to tire degradation, while on the pit wall, the right decisions will need to be made.

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Force India

Paul di Resta – 7th [5th on the grid]

Adrian Sutil – 8th [6th on the grid]

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: « An excellent performance from the team gave us our best qualifying performance of the year. We knew we had the pace to get both our cars into Q3 and in the end, it was very close between Paul and Adrian with just a few hundredths separating them. We expect to gain a few positions due to penalties being applied, which puts us in a good position for the race. We have no concerns about the tires, so the key tomorrow is to maintain our positions and find clean air with the strategy to make the most of our strong race pace here. »

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Lotus

**Kimi Räikkönen** – 9th [8th on the grid]

Romain Grosjean – 11th

Alan Permane, Director of Track Operations: We are disappointed with the result, of course. We narrowly missed the cut for Q3 with Romain, who seemed strong. But unfortunately, the evolution of the track caught us off guard a bit and he made two small mistakes in his only lap in Q2. Without that, we are sure he would have passed. Romain has a good amount of new tires and starting with fresh rubber should give him a good boost for the first stint. Of course, he has to use both types of tires, but we will dive into the numbers to define the optimal strategy.

Regarding Kimi, his session was rather a mystery. His second attempt in Q2 was very respectable, but in Q3, he could not find the pace. He had been strong all weekend up to that point. So we will have to dig into the data tonight to understand what happened.

We were very happy with our pace on the long runs yesterday, both cars performed well and the tyre degradation remained manageable. This race is tough on the tyres, but it worked to our advantage last year. We were able to achieve a great result starting from similar positions, so we are certainly not out of contention.

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McLaren

Jenson Button – 10th

Sergio Pérez – 12th

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal: Jenson and Checo [Sergio Pérez, ed.] both did disciplined work today. Coming into this weekend, we knew it was going to be challenging for us – it’s a track that demands a lot from the rear end, a characteristic that highlights one of our car’s weaknesses. However, these circumstances require patience and hard work, and I think our drivers as well as our engineers have made the most of a package that is even more limited than usual on such a circuit. Jenson’s lap in Q2 was phenomenal and allowed him to get into Q3. Although it’s not something a person from Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is used to accepting, we recognize that these are tough times, and that lap was welcomed. At the same time, Checo drove extremely well in Q2 and was just a few tenths off Jenson’s formidable lap. As in China last weekend, our efforts have been primarily focused on obtaining a decent result during tomorrow’s race. Both our drivers are fantastic competitors, and I’m sure they will do everything to deliver a good performance for us.

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Toro Rosso

Daniel Ricciardo – 13th

Jean-Eric Vergne – 16th

James Key, Technical Director: On Friday, we were quite pleased with our position, even though we knew the car wasn’t as well-balanced as it could have been. So we worked overnight and made changes for free practice 3, where we found the balance was better but for some unknown reason, although we had a good pace on Hards, we struggled more with the Mediums. For qualifying, we went back a bit with our settings to ensure the car wasn’t too hard on the tires. JEV [Vergne, ed.] moved to Q2 by setting a lap on the hards, and Daniel did a good lap on the Mediums.

We knew it would be difficult to get into Q3, especially since the Force India cars are clearly faster than us in qualifying conditions this weekend. Ultimately, it was very close, with Daniel doing a good job with the Mediums, but JEV didn’t perform as well, and we need to analyze the data to understand what happened. The gap between the two compounds here is smaller than in China, and the Mediums seem to be a good compound for the race, so it’s useful to have several sets of new Mediums in this regard, and carefully managing the rear tires will be a key element in the race.

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Sauber

Nico Hülkenberg – 14th

Esteban Gutiérrez – 18th [22nd on the grid]

Tom McCullough, Track Engineering Director: Due to Esteban’s penalty, we decided to focus on heavy fuel runs during free practice 3, and we approached qualifying differently today. We have many new sets of tires for him tomorrow, and we are studying the best way to use them. On a more standard program, Nico was happy with his car during free practice 3, but it was more challenging to drive during qualifying, and we need to understand why. Being within the same tenth as the two cars in front of you is always disappointing. We look forward to maximizing the strategy to aim for points.

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Williams

Valtteri Bottas – 15th

Pastor Maldonado – 17th

Mike Coughlan, Technical Director: Following this morning’s testing, our long runs seemed better than those of our competitors, so our focus this afternoon was on getting through to Q2. We used new Medium tires in Q1 on both cars to give us the best possible chance, but unfortunately, we didn’t succeed with Pastor, although both our drivers posted identical times. The times were very close with Valtteri falling four-tenths short of Q3, so there was a chance to do better. Now, we must look towards tomorrow and focus on our performance in the long runs and devising the best strategy for the race.

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Caterham

Charles Pic – 19th [18th on the grid]

Giedo van der Garde – 21st [20th on the grid]

Caterham did not release the statements of the team’s representatives.

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Marussia

Jules Bianchi – 20th [19th on the grid]

Max Chilton – 22nd [21st on the grid]

John Booth, Team Director: « The race preparation hasn’t been without its problems once again, but we are optimistic that, as was the case in China last weekend, we will have a better Sunday. We don’t hide the fact that this circuit does not favor our car, but behind the scenes, we have still made progress in solving the balance issues that were our priority. A KERS water pump problem on Max’s car set him back, so congratulations to him for turning the situation around well during qualifying. He was disappointed by a small mistake in his second fast lap but looking beyond it, he did the best job possible given the circumstances today and he should be proud of how he responded to the challenges he faced. Jules also did a very good job and I think we can expect solid performances from them tomorrow.

We have a better understanding of the issue encountered in the garage with Jules’ car. This morning, a small amount of gasoline was spilled due to a problem with the fuel connector. We examined all the components and made changes before the qualifications, but unfortunately, a small amount of gasoline was spilled again this afternoon at the end of the session. In both incidents, at no point did the fuel ignite. The mechanics quickly reacted with extinguishers as a precautionary measure, in accordance with our procedures, which made the situation appear more dramatic than it actually was. That being said, finding the root of the problem has been our top priority, and we are confident that the measures taken will prevent a recurrence of the issue.

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