Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas took pole position ahead of temporary teammate George Russell for the Sakhir Grand Prix on Saturday.
Russell, who was loaned by Williams to the Mercedes team following Lewis Hamilton’s positive COVID-19 diagnosis earlier this week, will start second.
“I’m happy to be on pole but it wasn’t my best performance in qualifying. It’s a different situation with a new teammate.” Bottas said.
“I managed to focus on my own work. It’s nice to be on pole but it was clearly not my best qualifying session is a bit of the unknown. It’s important to be on pole and I think we’ll have an interesting race. It’s a bit of a Mickey Mouse circuit, it’s bumpy.” Bottas added.
Meanwhile, the third goes to the Red Bull Driver Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, whose performance can only be commended in view of the performance deficit of his Ferrari’s engine in the three long straights that make up most of it of the exterior track of the Sakhir circuit, used for the first time in F1.
On this track, which is only 3.543 km long and covered in just over 53 seconds, pole was won for nothing between Bottas, Russell (0.026) and Verstappen (0.056).
Racing Point driver Sergio Perez, Alpha Tauri driver Daniil Kvyat, Renault, Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren driver Carlos Sainz Jr, Alpha Tauri deiver French Pierre Gasly, and Racing Point driver Lance Stroll close the top 10.
Disappointing and absent from the third and final part of qualifying, when pole is played, Renault driver Esteban Ocon, Red Bull driver Alexander Albon and the Briton Lando Norris must be content with the 11th, 12th and 15th time. Meanwhile, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel is finished 13th.
Two drivers are making their GP debuts this weekend: Williams’s Jack Aitken finished in 18th in qualifying and Pietro Fittipaldi bringing up the rear of the field in 20th for Haas.
