Vettel took the 51st pole position of his career with a last-ditch effort to snatch pole from his teammate in an extremely close session.
Kimi Raikkonen had been quick all weekend and was sitting in provisional pole after the first runs in Q3, but he encountered traffic on his final run and couldn’t improve as Vettel pipped him with a time of 1:27.958.
Valtteri Bottas took third whilst Lewis Hamilton could only manage fourth, which will become ninth after his grid penalty. So much for the Mercedes party mode…
After Max Verstappen binned it in Q1 Daniel Ricciardo was left as the sole Red Bull representative and managed fifth, a few tenths off of pole.
The real star of qualifying however has to be Pierre Gasly. He not only got his Toro Rosso-Honda into Q3, but managed to stick it sixth and claim the mantle of ‘best of the rest’, only 1.2 seconds off pole. Brendon Hartley proved Toro Rosso’s pace with 11th. The McLarens only ended up 13th and 14th…
Kevin Magnussen continued Haas’ good form with seventh, although Romain Grosjean had a bit of a scruffy session and went out in Q1, along with both Saubers and both Williams’.
INITIAL CLASSIFICATION (END OF QUALIFYING): A first pole of 2018 for Sebastian Vettel #BahrainGP 🇧🇭 #F1 #Quali pic.twitter.com/sRcBUfFtnY
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 7, 2018
With Hamilton and Verstappen starting so low down we could be in for an exciting race. Ferrari’s race pace is expected to be strong so the question is: how much will the team allow the drivers to race?
