FORMULA 1: QUALIFYING: Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2020

ROUND 15: Bahrain International Circuit

Q1 - Albon Bounces Back, Stroll looks Mighty!

All drivers went out on softs barring Stroll who interestingly came out on mediums. Drivers struggled for clean air in the Q1 traffic and had to make improvement runs.

P16 - P20: Giovinazzi, Raikkonen, Magnussen, Grosjean & Latifi.

Q1 saw the underdogs rise up the ranks as Lance Stroll finished in P2 on his mediums
Albon outshone his teammate and finished in a solid P3 ahead of Bottas
Russel out qualified teammate Nicholas Latifi yet again - befittingly called the Saturday Man

Q2 - Red Flag as Sainz Spins!

All drivers headed out on softs barring the Alpha Tauri duo who came out on mediums.

P11 - P15: Vettel, Leclerc, Stroll, Russell and Sainz.

Sainz faced a mechanical issue and spun off on the main straight. "There is no drive" came the Spaniard's feedback. He now starts in P15.
Most drivers were about to start their flyers when the session was halted and had to retire to the pit lane. All of them came out on mediums.
The Ferraris having been nowhere close to race pace start in P11 and P12. Although they get a free choice of tyres, the top 10 start on mediums thus taking away even the slightest hope from them.

Q3 - 98th Pole for LH44 with a New Track Record!

Hamilton hit the pedal flat and finished Q3 in style as he put in a 1:27:264 setting the new track record!
Bottas continued with his streak of bad luck and finished three tenths of a second behind Lewis. Max followed four tenths of a second behind Bottas - just 0.7 seconds separating the top 3!
Albon proved that he is a worthy contender for the seat despite his FP3 crash and parked his Red Bull next to Verstappen's in P4 (only for the second time in 2020). This could give Red Bull a significant advantage.
Perez continued his own personal streak of solid performances as he put his Racing Point in P5, splitting the Red Bulls from the Renaults and spicing up the mix.

The Starting Grid

What to Watch For

For the second time this season, Albon is in a position to take the battle to the silver arrows alongside Max Verstappen. In a two stop race such as this one, if Albon can get a clean start and keep pace with the top 3, Mercedes will have to begin worrying about traffic when they make their first pit stop.
In another interesting possibility, should either Mercedes driver get overtaken right at the start by Max or Albon, the silver arrows could have their chances of pulling off an undercut jeopardised.
The Ferraris may choose to play the long game by starting on the hard compound tyres and try to somehow finish in the points despite their underperforming car on a power intensive circuit.
Of course a question remains - will Carlos Sainz recover from P15?

Don't Miss the Race from Anywhere in the World

All pictures used in this post are the courtesy of the Formula 1 website, F1 Instagram page, the Instagram pages of all racing teams and the Pirelli website.

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