Behind Russell was third ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris who had to make a late charge after having an early run deleted for infringing track limits. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly took fifth place ahead of Racing Point’s Sergio Pérez and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.
There was a slightly nervous end to the segment for second Red Bull driver Alex Albon, however. Banking on the safety of his early time of 54.620 his team kept him the garage on the final run and as rivals’ final times came in the Thai driver fell down the order.
Fortunately his fall halted at P15 and he went through to Q2 eight hundredths of a second ahead of the first driver eliminated, Kevin Magnussen. Alongside the Haas driver, Williams pair Nicholas Latifi and Jack Aitken, Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen and Haas’ Pietro Fittipaldi.
In the second segment the Mercedes drivers, both Red Bulls and the Ferrari drievrs went out on medium tyres but while their initial times looked good, the gaps were too tight and in the closing stages every car went out on track again to try to ensure progress.
After moving to soft tyres, Verstappen jumped to the top of table with a lap of 53.647, a time that would hold good until the chequered flag. Behind him Pérez took second place ahead of Bottas, Sainz and Russell. Leclerc went through in sixth place ahead of Kvyat, Ricciardo and Gasly.
Out, though, went Renault’s Esteban Ocon and two hundredths of a second behind him, Alex Albon. The Thai driver had a poor second sector on his final flying lap and as the lap ebbed away he could find no improvement in the final stretch and so was eliminated in P12 ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, the Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi and the McLaren of Lando Norris.
In Q3 Verstappen initially claimed provisional pole with a lap of 53.591 with Leclerc putting in a superb lap to take a provisional front row spot. Both Mercedes drivers had run worn softs tyres on their opening run however and a second run on new rubber pushed both Bottas and Russell ahead of Verstappen.
In the end Bottas’ second run time of 53.377 was good enough to take pole but while the Finn couldn’t improve on his third run it briefly looked like Verstappen might challenge it. The Dutchman set the fastest third sector but it wasn’t enough as Russell also improved and in the end Max took third place 0.026s behind Russell and just 0.056s off pole.
Behind the top three Leclerc’s time ended up being good enough for fourth and the Ferrari driver will start ahead of Pérez, Kvyat, Ricciardo, Sainz, Gasly and Stroll.
| Sakhir Grand Prix – Qualifying | ||||
| P. | DRIVER | TEAM | TIME | GAP |
| 1. | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes AMG | 53.377 | |
| 2. | George Russell | Mercedes AMG | 53.403 | + 0.026 |
| 3. | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 53.433 | + 0.056 |
| 4. | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 53.615 | + 0.236 |
| 5. | Sergio Pérez | Racing Point | 53.790 | + 0.415 |
| 6. | Daniil Kvyat | AlphaTauri | 53.906 | + 0.529 |
| 7. | Daniel Ricciardo | Renault | 53.957 | + 0.580 |
| 8. | Carlos Sainz Jr. | McLaren | 54.010 | + 0.633 |
| 9. | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | 54.154 | + 0.777 |
| 10. | Lance Stroll | Racing Point | 54.200 | + 0.823 |
| Q2 Fastest Time: Max Verstappen - 53.647 | ||||
| 11. | Esteban Ocon | Renault | 53.995 | + 0.348 |
| 12. | Alex Albon | Red Bull | 54.026 | + 0.379 |
| 13. | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 54.175 | + 0.528 |
| 14. | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo | 54.377 | + 0.730 |
| 15. | Lando Norris | McLaren | 54.693 | + 1.046 |
| Q1 Fastest Time: Valtteri Bottas - 53.904 | ||||
| 16. | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | 54.705 | + 0.801 |
| 17. | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | 54.796 | + 0.892 |
| 18. | Jack Aitken | Williams | 54.892 | + 0.988 |
| 19. | Kimi Räikkönen | Alfa Romeo | 54.963 | + 1.059 |
| 20. | Pietro Fittipaldi | Haas | 55.426 | + 1.522 |
| 107% time: 57.677 | ||||
SAKHIR - OUTER LAYOUT
2020 Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes AMG - 53.377
@MkFormula1 - REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
| ||||
No comments:
Post a Comment