Bahrain Grand Prix – Qualifications: Charles Leclerc on pole position!

Charles Leclerc will start from pole position for the Bahrain GP 2022. He will be closely followed by Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, all on soft tires.

The qualifying sessions were particularly satisfying for Ferrari, confirming the great form they had shown during winter testing. The same goes for Red Bull. From Q1, the reigning champion came and set the pace by going under the 1:32 mark, followed by Sergio Perez who was four tenths behind.

On the other hand, Mercedes seems to be a little behind, with Hamilton in fifth position and George Russell in ninth place. What’s more, the W13 is still suffering from porpoising.

At AlphaTauri, AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda set the opening pace with a time of 1:33.581 before quickly being overtaken by his teammate Pierre Gasly, who was 5 tenths faster in Q1. However, the Japanese driver did not have the opportunity to improve as he was part of the first group of drivers to be eliminated.

At the controls of the Haas car, Kevin Magnussen impressed by making it to Q3, but a hydraulic issue with the VF22 prevented him from achieving a better result than a seventh place, which was already quite promising, at the end of the qualifying session.

Great disappointment also at McLaren who did not reach Q3. McLaren is suffering from a water pressure leak on the MCL36, after experiencing a brake overheating issue during the last tests. The team’s second driver suffered from lack of track time during the tests. As a reminder, Daniel Ricciardo was unable to participate in the Bahrain tests last week due to Coronavirus.

As for Valtteri Bottas, he takes sixth place on the starting grid behind the wheel of the Alfa Romeo. As for his teammate at Alfa Romeo, Guanyu Zhou still managed to reach Q2 before being eliminated.

The Williams also quickly went off track. While Nicholas Latifi was eliminated in the first round, Alexander Albon was unable to reach the top 10.

The timetable