With a short lap of 53,377 seconds on the Bahrain external configuration track, Valteri Botass secured a pole position in the Sakira Grand Prix. This was the shortest pole position circle in F1 history. Bot teammate George Russell will start the race next to him from second place.
The first qualifying session ended with anticipation – the expected congestion was missed and all the riders on the short Sakira track found time to complete their test lap. Valter Botass and Mercedes showed the fastest result, while in the Red Bull team everything did not go so smoothly – Alex Albon did not go on the track in the last minutes, but the Thai representative was pushed to the 15th place. That was enough for the hairdresser to enter the second round. Kevin Magnussen, the two Williams riders, with Eitken, a debutant, gave up minimal concessions to Nicolas Latifi, but Kimi Raikonen and Pietro Fitipaldi, who will face a series of penalties for changing components after Grožan’s fire a week ago, left.
The second round turned out to be very close – Esteban Okons was less than 0.35 seconds behind Q2 winner Max Verstapen, but that was not enough to get into the top 10 riders. Alex Obon, Sebastian Vettel, Antonio Giovinaci and Lando Norris were behind Okona. “Racing Point” showed a great performance – for a long time, Serhio Peress was in the first place in the leaderboard, before Verstapens pushed him to the second place at the very end of the session.
In the crucial session, George Russell made a faster lap than George Russell, but not only Max Verstapen was faster than Mercedes, but also Charles Leckler, who jumped to second place, just 0.02 seconds behind Verstapen, and Serhio Peres finished in fourth place. between Botas and Russell. In the second attempt, Botass and Russell beat Verstapen with new soft tires. Lekler didn’t go on the track in the last minutes because he no longer had unused soft tires. Although Russell and Verstapen managed to improve their lap times, Walter Botass maintained his pole position. The top three fit in 0.056 seconds. Clare retained the 4th place. From the third row, Peres and Quyat will start the race, leaving Richtero, Sainc, Gazli and Strol behind.
Whether Botas will be able to turn pole position into a victory, or George Russell will be able to show competition to a Finnish driver in his first start as a member of Mercedes, we will be able to see on Sunday at 19:10 Latvian time.
