Bahrain Grand Prix : Sebastian Vettel snatches pole from Kimi Raikkonen as Lewis Hamilton starts ninth

An all-Ferrari front-row sees Vettel take pole away from Kimi Raikkonen on his final lap while championship rival Hamilton takes a five-place grid penalty to drop to ninth

Sebastian Vettel celebrates his pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix (Getty)

Ferrari have been menacingly strong all weekend here in Bahrain, and though their rivals got a lot closer in the final session of qualifying, nothing could dislodge the red cars from the front row of the grid, nor threaten their status as pre-race favourite.

For much of the time, Kimi Raikkonen looked a likely polesitter, but as has so often proved to be the case, Sebastian Vettel finally overcame his team-mate when it mattered.

As the Finn failed to improve on his first-run Q3 lap of 1m 28.101s, which was fastest at the time, Vettel made up for a last-corner mistake on his first run to improve to 1m 27.958s to take the 51st pole of his career.

The Ferrari is fundamentally the same car that he used to win the Australian Grand Prix a fortnight ago, but changes to its set-up had given the former quadruple champion a machine that did just what he wanted it to.

“I think we have a good base and the tyres are working and the car is a bit better here than in Australia,” he said. “We didn’t know yet the car that well here, and then I missed much of this morning’s final practice session [due to lose bodywork], but the car came alive as we made progress.

Vettel's car is not too dissimilar from the one that took him to victory in Melbourne (Getty)

“It’s now responding to what I want it to do after we worked on the balance a lot. Tried work on set-up and understanding of the car. Australia is a tricky track, very bumpy, but after the race we had a better understanding of the car. Then we talked about it and looked into it all further, and as a result I’ve been happier this weekend and the front end has been responding better. That’s the only difference, all the rest is the same car as we had in Australia.

“On my first run in Q3 I was very happy, and the car was excellent, but then I threw it away by running wide in the final corner. So I was really happy to get my second run. I kept it clean and stayed away from that kerb in the final corner.

“Tomorrow may be a different story, because it’s a long, long race and it’s not easy to make the tyres last, but the car is quick and that helps.”

Vettel will start ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas (Getty)

Mercedes paid a price for experimenting with the set-up of their cars yesterday, when Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas were a long way off the Ferraris’ pace. But things were better today, albeit tempered by the need for Hamilton’s car to be fitted with a new gearbox. It transpired that he had been lucky to finish second to Vettel in Australia as a hydraulic leak had damaged the unit sufficiently badly to make a replacement inevitable here, so wherever Hamilton qualified today, he would have to drop five grid places.

He was third fastest after the first runs in Q3, but as he failed to improve on his second, team-mate Bottas did and sneaked ahead for third.

Sebastian Vettel starts the Bahrain Grand Prix from pole position (Getty)

That leaves the world champion ninth on the grid, but his pace in Q2, when he was second fastest behind Vettel, was hugely encouraging. Where the German ran Pirelli’s supersoft compound tyres, Hamilton opted to run the slower softs yet lapped in 1m 28.548s to Vettel’s 1m 28.341s. Drivers must race on the tyres they used in Q2, so Hamilton will aim to run much longer than his rivals during the race’s first stint as the softs are more durable than the supersofts, hoping to make up ground and leapfrog them while they make earlier pit stops.

Hamilton had to take a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change (Getty)

“Ferrari are just quicker in general,” said Hamilton. “Better too with their tyres. They always are in hot places like this.

“Maybe they’ve got an upgrade. Their engine mode is easily as good as ours this weekend. You see it on the straights. They’re just as quick if not a bit quicker.

“But I will do all I can to do something, turn things upside down, and get a result.”

On the face of it, he should be able to slice through from ninth in his pursuit of Vettel, Raikkonen, Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo, who put his Red Bull fourth with 1m 28.398s and has shown very strong race pace thus far.

Max Verstappen spun off during first qualifying (Getty)

But he will need to overtake the impressively quick Pierre Gasly in a surprisingly competitive Toro Rosso-Honda which thoroughly embarrassed McLaren, the oft-intransigent Kevin Magnussen’s Haas-Ferrari, Nico Hulkenberg’s fleet Renault and Esteban Ocon’s Force India-Mercedes. The four of them were covered by just half a second, which might pose a few problems with overtaking if they remain bunched together in the opening laps.

Adding spice to Hamilton’s fight up from ninth is Max Verstappen’s presence in only 15th on the grid. The Dutchman was second fastest to Raikkonen in the final practice session today, and showed very good race pace yesterday, but spun exiting Turn 2 in the first qualifying session and damaged his Red Bull too badly to participate further.

“It was unfortunate,” he said. “I studied the data a bit and saw we had a 150hp increase, which is a bit odd. The corner isn’t flat out, but it was like an on and off switch. It spun up the rear tyres quite aggressively and then I spun. I didn’t anticipate it at all. With 150 bhp extra, suddenly it went and when you are already on the limit it is quite a lot.”

Qualifying positions:

1 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Ferrari 1min 27.958secs

2 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1:28.101

3 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Mercedes GP 1:28.124

4 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mercedes GP 1:28.220

5 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Red Bull 1:28.398

6 Pierre Gasly (Fra) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:29.329

7 Kevin Magnussen (Den) Haas F1 1:29.358

8 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Renault 1:29.570

9 Esteban Ocon (Fra) Force India 1:29.874

10 Carlos Sainz (Spa) Renault 1:29.986

11 Brendon Hartley (Nzl) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:30.105

12 Sergio Perez (Mex) Force India 1:30.156

13 Fernando Alonso (Spa) McLaren 1:30.212

14 Stoffel Vandoorne (Bel) McLaren 1:30.525

15 Max Verstappen (Ned) Red Bull No Time

16 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Haas F1 1:30.530

17 Marcus Ericsson (Swe) Sauber-Ferrari 1:31.063

18 Sergey Sirotkin (Rus) Williams 1:31.414

19 Charles Leclerc (Mon) Sauber-Ferrari 1:31.420

20 Lance Stroll (Can) Williams 1:31.503