Vettel on pole in Bahrain

Felipe Massa, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso after Bahrain qualifying

Sebastian Vettel took pole position for the first race of the season in Bahrain today, with a great lap that put him ahead of the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso.

Here is the news from all 3 sessions:

Q1

Karun Chandhok in his first laps for HRT

Fernando Alonso set the early pace, but was soon beaten by Massa. Button and Hamilton traded very close laps as usual, while Sutil also got in the mix. Alonso got another fast lap at the very end to take top spot.

It was very worrying for Sauber, as Kamui Kobayashi struggled to get through to Q2, and his best time only got him 15th place. Pedro de la Rosa was no better.

As expected, Senna and Chandhok of HRT failed to get through, and qualified at the back. The onboard cameras showed the cars sliding about on the track, a clear sign of a lack of downforce. None of the Lotus or Virgin cars got through to Q2 either, but showed quite a bit more pace. Jaime Alguersuari was the one midfield man who was caught out, and ended up 17th.

Drivers knocked out in Q1:

18) Alguersuari
19) Glock
20) Trulli
21) Kovalainen
22) di Grassi
23) Senna
24) Chandhok.

Q2

Sebastian Vettel set the early pace. Schumacher and Button struggled on their first run. Like Q1, the Saubers of De la Rosa and Kobayashi struggled, only getting  .

There was a slight lag of action with 5 minutes to go, as many of the cars opted  to wait until the last minute. When they all went out, Jenson Button just about got through to Q3, ending up 10th. Schumacher failed to improve on his earlier lap, and qualified 9th. Compare this to their teammates, Rosberg and Hamilton, who qualified 5th and 6th respectively.

Drivers knocked out in Q2:

11) Barrichello
12) Liuzzi
13) Hulkenberg
14) de la Rosa
15) Buemi
16) Kobayashi
17) Petrov.

Q3

Sebastian Vettel after taking pole position in Bahrain

This time, the drivers had the choice of setting a faster time on the softer tyre, or go for race durability with the medium tyres. The near-universal choice was for soft tyres, which gives a big advantage to Rubens Barrichello, who lies 11th on medium tyres.

Like Q2, many drivers waited until the last second to get their time in. Fernando Alonso took provisional pole, but was knocked off in the final set of laps. Mercedes’ last lap-runs didn’t go to plan, with Rosberg and Schumacher taking 5th and 7th respectively.

Vettel’s fastest lap of 1.54.101 was enough to see him past Felipe Massa, who was 0.141 seconds behind, while Alonso was another 4 tenths back. Lewis Hamilton took 4th, followed by Rosberg, Webber, Schumacher, Button, Kubica and Sutil.

Full times from Q1, 2 and 3:

Position	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	S. Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1.55.029	1.53.883	1.54.101
2	F. Massa	Ferrari	1.55.313	1.54.331	1.54.242
3	F. Alonso	Ferrari	1.54.612	1.54.172	1.54.608
4	L. Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1.55.341	1.57.707	1.55.217
5	N. Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1.55.463	1.54.682	1.55.241
6	M. Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1.55.298	1.54.318	1.55.284
7	M. Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1.55.593	1.55.105	1.55.524
8	J. Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1.55.715	1.55.168	1.55.672
9	R. Kubica	Renault	1.55.511	1.54.963	1.55.885
10	A. Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1.55.213	1.54.996	1.56.309
11	R. Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1.55.969	1.55.330
12	V. Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	1.55.628	1.55.653
13	N. Hulkenberg	Williams-Cosworth	1.56.375	1.55.857
14	P. De la Rosa	Sauber-Ferrari	1.56.428	1.56.237
15	S. Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1.56.189	1.56.265
16	K. Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1.56.541	1.56.270
17	V. Petrov	Renault	1.56.167	1.56.619
18	J. Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1.57.071
19	T. Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	1.59.728
20	J. Trulli	Lotus-Cosworth	1.59.852
21	H. Kovalainen	Lotus-Cosworth	2.00.313
22	L. Di Grassi	Virgin-Cosworth	2.00.587
23	B. Senna	HRT-Cosworth	2.03.240
24	K. Chandhok	HRT-Cosworth	2.04.904