Bahrain Qualifying Reaction
Image: Red Bull Media
The first qualifying session of 2023 in Bahrain definitely threw a spanner in the works for a few teams. Although the end result wasn’t much different from what 2022 offered us, this qualifying session has us with more questions than answers. Without further ado, let’s briefly revisit the results of qualifying for the 2023 Bahrain GP.
Q1
For the first qualifying outing of the season, Q1 was jam-packed and full of amazing performances. Alpha Tauri and McLaren were the biggest losers of Q1 as both teams struggled to find pace throughout the session. Lando Norris barely made it out of the session with Logan Sargeant and teammate Oscar Piastri challenging him for the final place in Q2.
Norris eventually made it out of Q1 with a 1:31.652, the exact same time posted by Williams’ Logan Sargeant who performed really well on his F1 debut. Norris posted the time first so he progressed and Sargeant ended up P16. Nyck De Vries also had a subpar qualifying as he couldn’t fire up the AlphaTauri to reach Q2 quite like his teammate Tsunoda, who clearly seemed to look more comfortable during qualifying.
Pierre Gasly’s track record in Bahrain reads pretty well so it’s strange to say the Frenchman will be starting at the back of the grid. This is due to the deletion of his lap time for exceeding track limits. This was something Alpine could’ve done without.
Another huge surprise for the race was the loss of Oscar Piastri, who has a pretty good junior formula record. Classifying P18 is absolutely not where the young Aussie talent envisaged his first F1 qualifying ending.
The five drivers knocked out of Q1 were: Gasly (P20), De Vries (P19), Piastri (P18), Magnussen (P17), and Sargeant (P16).
Q2
The second qualifying session saw a much more competitive Ferrari, who from this point, applied immense pressure onto Red Bull and Mercedes.
Both Leclerc and Sainz displayed incredible pace and were matching lap times with Alonso’s Aston Martin, which was originally thought to be a quicker car. Leclerc ended up taking the fastest time of Q2 with a 1:30.282, over two-tenths clear of Max Verstappen.
Further down the order, Mercedes did well to maintain its momentum and get both cars into Q3, which is something Alfa Romeo couldn’t do as Bottas and Zhou qualified P12 and P13 respectively. This is however a very good position for Alfa Romeos as it gives them a chance to fight for vital points.
Albon ended up in P15 giving Williams a brief glimpse into Q2 and was shortly (no pun intended) followed by Yuki Tsunoda, who found some extra pace in P14. That being said, it seems as AlphaTauri has no direct competitor and is still figuring out what can be done to fight at the top end of the midfield.
The same can’t be said for Lando Norris as he failed to make Q3 after a dismal first few sessions in Bahrain. McLaren will really want to take a look into its development and work on a fix for races like Baku and Miami, where McLaren predict they’ll return.
The five drivers knocked out of Q2 were: Albon (P15), Tsunoda (P14), Zhou (P13), Bottas (P12), and Norris (P11).
Q3
I’ll be honest — Q3 was a letdown. Instead of seeing a rampant Fernando Alonso take the fight to F1’s future generation, the Spaniard set very quick lap times but failed to provide a grandstand finish against the Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari drivers.
Alonso did manage to beat both Mercedes drivers who were both confused by the lack of pace. Russell pipped his teammate to qualify P6 but surely expected more from the all-black W14. Especially considering Lewis Hamilton only qualified P7 at Bahrain, a track where he has won five times.
Other drivers involved in this session included Esteban Ocon, who did a great job maximising the potential of his Alpine and finished a respectable P9, just over a tenth of a second behind Lance Stroll in P8 who has put in an amazing performance considering the recovery from his wrist injury.
A late charge from Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc encouraged Sergio Perez to find a few extra tenths and qualified P2 behind Verstappen, who clinched his 21st pole position by 0.138 seconds.
The stars of this qualifying session have to be Alonso with keeping up with the big three teams and Nico Hulkenberg who took his Haas into Q3 . The German driver will only start P10 but has made the right impression on yet another comeback to F1.
The final top ten in qualifying were: Hulkenberg (P10), Ocon, (P9), Stroll (P8), Hamilton (P7), Russell (P6), Alonso, (P5), Sainz (P4), Leclerc (P3), Perez (P2), and Verstappen (P1).
Stay tuned for more content on the Bahrain GP here on Race Reaction.
