Oracle Red Bull Racing

Bahrain Grand Prix: Saturday Report

Max Verstappen is set to start the Bahrain Grand Prix from seventh on the grid – just behind early title rival Lando Norris – with Yuki Tsunoda in 10th

the

Bulls

endured

tricky

Sakhir

qualifying

which

both

drivers

struggled

for

grip

and

required

last

ditch

laps

the

end

sessions

make

through

the

top

shootout.

Pole

position

went

McLaren’s

Oscar

Piastri,

who

finished

ahead

Mercedes’

George

Russell

and

Ferrari’s

Charles

Leclerc.

FP3

With final practice taking place in conditions unlike those likely to be in play during qualifying, FP3 got off to a quiet start and it wasn’t until almost 20 minutes in that the Bulls made their first appearance.

Max’s opener was on course to lift him to the top of the order, but the Dutchman went wide in Turn 11 and he headed back to the pit lane. Yuki was also struggling for grip and he too spent much of the first half of the segment in the garage.

With 29 minutes left, Sauber’s Nico Hülkenberg sparked a brief VSC period when he ground to a halt at Turn 8. After his car had been recovered and the track went green again, Max climbed to second with a lap of 1:33.558.

The qualifying sims soon followed, and though Max briefly claimed top spot with his lap of 1:33.027 on new softs, he soon slipped back down the order and when the McLaren pair of Oscar and Lando forged a sizeable gap to the rest of the field, Max had to settle for P8 at the flag.

Yuki, meanwhile, struggled with the balance of this RB21 throughout and after going wide on his sole quali run he ended the session in last place.

Max is set to start the Bahrain GP from seventh on the grid

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso set the early pace in Q1 with a lap of 1:32.362. Max was on course to ease past that with his first flyer, but he locked up in Turn 15 and the Champion immediately abandoned the lap and headed for the pit lane saying that there was “something wrong with the car”. Yuki crossed the line in 1:32.096 to take top spot but he also went wide in Turn 15. His lap time was deleted and he too headed for the garage.

At the top of the table Lando took over, with the McLaren driver posting a lap of 1:31.107, two tenths of a second ahead of team-mate Oscar who was over three tenths ahead of Ferrari’s Charles.

With a little under three minutes remaining, and with no times on the board, the Bulls went out knowing they had to make their final flyers count. And they didn’t miss the mark. Max’s 1:31.303 lifted him from P19 to P3, just 0.196 off Lando’s earlier table topper and ahead of Oscar, while a 1:31.751 took Yuki through to Q2 in 14th place.

There was no way through to the middle segment, however, for Williams’ Alex Albon who went out in P16 along with VCARB’s Liam Lawson who had a DRS problem on his final run, Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Haas’ Oliver Bearman.

The Bulls were out early at the start of second session, but after four minutes the red flags came out when Esteban Ocon lost control of his Haas in Turn 2 and slid backwards into the barriers at Turn 3.

After an eight-minute delay while the Frenchman’s car was retrieved, the session got underway once more. Max headed out on track on used tyres but as Oscar set the pace at 1:30.454, a tenth ahead of Lando, Max abandoned his lap and dived into the pits, as he again battled oversteer.

Yuki, however, stayed in the garage after the resumption and once again the Bulls needed to deliver with their final flyers. For a second time there were no mistakes, but the duo had to endure nervous moments at the end of the session as they slid to the edge of the top 10. In the end, Max made it through in ninth place, with a final flyer of 1:31.019, just one hundredth behind Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton.

It was even more tense for Yuki, as his lap, two tenths off his team-mate put him in P10, left him vulnerable to the flurry of green times lighting up the timesheet. Alpine’s Jack Doohan gave Yuki a fright but as the laps played out, the Japanese driver crept through to Q3 in Bahrain for the first time in his career, with less than two hundredths of a second in hand over the Australian.

The Bulls were out early at the start of second session

Having been forced to use a second set of tyres in Q1 the Bulls went out for their first runs of Q3 on used softs and it was Yuki who made the most of them as the Japanese driver posted a lap of 1:31.637 to eventually sit in P5 as Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and Lewis had times deleted. Max, though, suffered a snap in Turn 4, and the Dutchman could only manage a time of 1:32.057, which left him in P8 ahead of the final flyers. At the top of the order, Oscar took provisional pole with a lap of 1:30.233, two tenths clear of Mercedes’ George and with Lando third.

And Oscar made sure of his second pole of the season with a final run of 1:29.84, with George a couple of tenths behind and Charles in third. Kimi took fourth for Mercedes but both Mercedes drivers could lose out having been summoned for leaving their garages ahead of a confirmed restart time in Q2.

Pierre Gasly took fifth place for Alpine ahead of Lando while Max, still struggling with oversteer and brake problems, hauled his RB21 to seventh with a time of 1:30.423. Carlos Sainz was eighth for Williams ahead of Lewis, and Yuki took 10th place with his final flyer of 1:31.303.