#SakhirGP Qualifying: @ValtteriBottas beats @GeorgeRussell63 to pole. #F1

Valtteri Bottas beat Mercedes team-mate George Russell to pole position in qualifying at the Sakhir GP but only narrowly by 0.026 seconds as the Silver Arrows temporary driver line-up fought for P1 on the grid.

With last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton out due to his positive coronavirus test earlier in the week, one of the questions was whether Russell could beat Bottas to pole or endure his first qualifying defeat to his temporary team-mate in his short Formula 1 career thus far.

After the pairing were the only two drivers to progress into Q3 on the C3 yellow side-walled mediums, which they will use at the start of tomorrow’s race, Mercedes went out of the ordinary and opted to give them three runs in the final qualifying stage.

Their initial hot-laps were completed on their used compounds, which meant they briefly sat behind Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on the time-sheets.

But the two F1 W11 EQ Power+ racers went again during the midway point of Q3, with Bottas blasting to a 53.377 with Russell 0.142 adrift of the Finn’s provisional pole benchmark.

On their last flyers in the final minute, Bottas failed to improve on his effort but held onto pole position as Williams Racing regular Russell closed the gap to a narrow 0.026 in what was the first time the Briton had competed in the third qualifying segment.

Verstappen who went into qualifying with promise topping the earlier FP3 session and attempted to progress through Q2 on the medium rubber before later going quicker on the C4 softer tyres, finished third and a further 0.056 seconds adrift of Bottas’ Sakhir GP pole time.

Leclerc just held onto fourth place on the grid despite getting out of his SF1000 earlier after his initial run at the earlier stages of the final segment.

The Monegasque-youngster only had one set of softs available and opted not to go back on circuit, but his effort of a 53.613 was enough to keep ahead of Racing Point’s Sergio Perez who completed the top five.

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat qualified sixth and in-front of Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo who was seventh and McLaren’s Carlos Sainz who took eighth.

The other Honda-powered AlphaTauri AT01 of Pierre Gasly ended qualifying in ninth with Racing Point’s Lance Stroll rounding out the top ten.

In the middle segment, Renault’s Esteban Ocon was knocked out after a rapid flush of quick lap-times once he had passed the line, qualifying in 11th place and in-front of Red Bull Racing’s Alexander Albon who ended Q2 in 12th.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel will start 13th on the grid after attempting to get through on the mediums during the initial Q2 running, but it was not enough after swapping to the softer compounds for the final flyers and ended up ahead of Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi who was 14th and McLaren’s Lando Norris who finished 15th.

Norris was in-front of the field for his final hot-lap, but abandoned his initial attempt before going again in the closing seconds – a lap he completed way off the pace, then said over the team radio “sorry guys, we went too early”.

In the first qualifying stage, Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen was the quickest of the Q1 eliminatees taking 16th on the grid and ahead of Williams Racing pairing Nicholas Latifi and Jack Aitken (subbing for Russell who is deputising for the ill Hamilton at Mercedes) were 17th and 18th respectively.

Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen and the other Haas VF-20 entry of Pietro Fittipaldi (filling in for the injured Romain Grosjean) brought up the rear.

You can read the full Formula 1 Rolex Sakhir Grand Prix 2020 Qualifying Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2020/races/1060/bahrain/qualifying.html

Sakhir GP Qualifying – The Top Three

Pole Position –  Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+:

“For sure it’s a different situation to have a new team mate. But I focused on my own doing and didn’t waste energy focusing on anything else. Not my best qualifying but I’m happy it was enough. Hopefully we’ll see a fun race.”

2nd Place – George Russell, #63, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+:

“It’s been incredibly intense, so much to learn. It’s a different way of driving, having to re-learn how to drive this car fast. I was just happy to get through to Q3, we got it all together on the final lap and if you’d told me last week I’d be qualifying P2 I wouldn’t have believed you!”

3rd Place – Max Verstappen, #33, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16:

“We had a good qualifying, the lap itself was fine. This track, the lap times are so close it could all depend on the start – it’s not going to be easy.”

In the earlier FP3 session, Red Bull’s Verstappen was quickest with Bottas taking second, Gasly third, Ocon fourth and Norris rounding out the top five. Click here for the full Formula 1 Rolex Sakhir Grand Prix 2020 Free Practice 3 Results Classification here at the link. 

You can catch up the FP1 and FP2 reports at the link:

#SakhirGP FP2 Report: @GeorgeRussell63 tops time-sheets for @MercedesAMGF1. #F1

#SakhirGP FP1 Report: @GeorgeRussell63 quickest ahead of @RedBullRacing pairing. #F1

Miss this weekend’s race preview? Read it here at the link:

#Formula1 @Rolex #SakhirGrandPrix 2020 Preview. #F1 #SakhirGP