Red Bull driver Max Verstappen has secured pole position for the 2021 season-opener in Bahrain, with him outpacing the Mercedes of Sir Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, who will line up in P2 and P3, respectively.
Max Verstappen took provisional pole by a small margin in his opening Q3 run, but he significantly improved in his final run and ended up with a margin of around four-tenths of a second over Hamilton.
Charles Leclerc put in an exceptional performance to qualify his Ferrari fourth on the grid, ahead of Pierre Gasly in the AlphaTauri and Daniel Ricciardo in the McLaren.
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Lando Norris qualified just behind his team-mate in P7, ahead of Carlos Sainz in the other Ferrari.
Fernando Alonso made it into Q3 on his return to Formula One and managed to qualify ninth for the Bahrain Grand Prix, while his Alpine team-mate, Esteban Ocon, was knocked out in Q1 after his final lap was hampered by yellow flags.
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Lance Stroll qualified his Aston Martin in P10, but his new team-mate Sebastian Vettel didn’t get out of Q1 due to him getting unlucky with a couple of yellow flags that were brought out by Nikita Mazepin and Sainz in the final seconds of the session.
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