Lewis Hamilton takes Bahrain GP pole, his 98th in F1

Method One champion Lewis Hamilton has set a observe document on the Bahrain Grand Prix on his method to a record-extending 98th profession pole place.

The seven-time F1 champion seemed in complete management as he set a time of 1 minute, 27.264 seconds beneath the floodlights on Saturday.

“We did some actually good work in a single day. I used to be actually proud of the automotive from the get-go,” the veteran British driver mentioned. “I simply did not make any errors.”

He completed about 0.3 seconds forward of his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas and about 0.4 away from Pink Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Bottas thought he was nearer to Hamilton’s time.

Loading

Verstappen, nevertheless, is resigned to being in Mercedes’ shadow.

“We’ll see what we will do tomorrow. It [the track] is kind of aggressive on the tyres right here.”

Verstappen’s teammate Alexander Albon was in fourth place and a full second behind Hamilton, who will bid for his record-extending ninety fifth F1 win on Sunday.

Loading

Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo had a stable qualifying, taking sixth place on the grid with a lap of 1:28.417, 1.153 seconds behind Hamilton.

This provides him a shot at repeating his effort at Imola, the place he benefited from some late drama to share a podium with Hamilton at the Emilia Romagna grand prix.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took the primary of his seven pole positions final season in Bahrain, however this 12 months the group has struggled badly and he begins from twelfth place behind teammate Sebastian Vettel.

Former champion Kimi Raikkonen was among the many 5 drivers eradicated from Q1 whereas Carlos Sainz Jr went out of Q2 after his rear tires blocked and his McLaren stalled on the observe.

Qualifying was halted for a couple of minutes whereas his automotive was eliminated.

Earlier, Verstappen beat Hamilton’s main time to go quickest within the last follow. The Dutchman was 0.26 forward of Hamilton and 0.37 forward of Bottas.

Hamilton was quickest in each follow runs on Friday and seemed set to make it a hat trick when he overtook Verstappen after which Bottas with about 10 minutes left within the hour-long session. However Verstappen got here again out and returned to the highest of the leaderboard.

Albon’s automotive was fitted with a brand new chassis after he crashed closely following a mistake on the final flip within the second follow.

Loading

Extra complaints about new tyres for 2021

Hamilton and different drivers have been complaining concerning the new Pirelli tyres, which they’re testing forward of 2021, saying they’re too heavy. Vettel says they’re even worse than earlier than.

“If that is the perfect they will do [it’s] higher we persist with this [current] tyre.”

Loading

4-time F1 champion Vettel agreed with Hamilton the 2020 tyre ought to saved subsequent 12 months, reasonably than switched to the unpopular 2021 mannequin.

“It’ll make the issues we battle with now worse,” he mentioned.

Verstappen joked the championship might change into “a drift problem” if producer Pirelli used the 2021 tyres, criticised for missing grip, as deliberate.

That is the fifteenth of 17 races within the coronavirus-shortened season, with one other race to observe in Bahrain subsequent Sunday earlier than the marketing campaign concludes in Abu Dhabi.

AP/ABC