Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was quickest during the third and final practice session ahead of Qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday.
There was nothing between the Mercedes drivers as they were on identical times to the thousandth of a second. Vettel’s loose wheel but during FP2 ended his session and neither Ferrari had a clean run on the Super Soft compound tires so there is a little to play for in the race but it still seems the Mercs are 4-5 tenths quicker over a pace. Then again, Nico Rosberg says the cooler temps may work against his Mercedes under the lights.
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1m31.683s | – | 22 |
| 2 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1m31.723s | 0.040s | 13 |
| 3 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1m32.104s | 0.421s | 18 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1m32.160s | 0.477s | 14 |
| 5 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams/Mercedes | 1m32.675s | 0.992s | 18 |
| 6 | Romain Grosjean | Haas/Ferrari | 1m33.082s | 1.399s | 14 |
| 7 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull/TAG Heuer | 1m33.113s | 1.430s | 10 |
| 8 | Esteban Gutierrez | Haas/Ferrari | 1m33.337s | 1.654s | 14 |
| 9 | Felipe Massa | Williams/Mercedes | 1m33.363s | 1.680s | 18 |
| 10 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull/TAG Heuer | 1m33.519s | 1.836s | 20 |
| 11 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber/Ferrari | 1m33.569s | 1.886s | 16 |
| 12 | Kevin Magnussen | Renault | 1m33.617s | 1.934s | 9 |
| 13 | Jenson Button | McLaren/Honda | 1m33.704s | 2.021s | 12 |
| 14 | Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren/Honda | 1m33.744s | 2.061s | 11 |
| 15 | Max Verstappen | Toro Rosso/Ferrari | 1m33.778s | 2.095s | 20 |
| 16 | Carlos Sainz | Toro Rosso/Ferrari | 1m34.003s | 2.320s | 20 |
| 17 | Felipe Nasr | Sauber/Ferrari | 1m34.013s | 2.330s | 15 |
| 18 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India/Mercedes | 1m34.128s | 2.445s | 16 |
| 19 | Sergio Perez | Force India/Mercedes | 1m34.281s | 2.598s | 15 |
| 20 | Jolyon Palmer | Renault | 1m34.424s | 2.741s | 9 |
| 21 | Rio Haryanto | Manor/Mercedes | 1m35.546s | 3.863s | 15 |
| 22 | Pascal Wehrlein | Manor/Mercedes | 1m35.724s | 4.041s | 16 |
Ok, having watched that qualifying again … teams definitely had a better handle on it this time so nobody was eliminated halfway through a hotlap. And its good that cameras can focus on the car on the bubble, which is better than a slew of cars running laps at the same time & the coverage not knowing where to look. But still there’s bunches of cars being eliminated at once because they haven’t time to pit, refuel/tire, do the outlap & then another hotlap before the counter beats them. Hence plenty of dead time, which is what this format was… Read more »
Exceeding track limits only gets penalised on corners where driver’s are deemed to have gained an advantage. In Bahrain there is so much dust off the circuit that it would be unlikely that any driver would gain an advantage. Hence no penalty.
Consistency isn’t one of F1’s strong points.
This really annoyed my the whole time too. They really need to either just stick with the track limits or scrap it. I hate trying to figure out what arbitrary corners the FIA is going to enforce this on.
A few people where eliminated during hot laps, it;s just the Tv coverage can’t keep up with what’s going on. Also the teams just got better at calling off the lap if they weren’t going to make it so there was just less hot laps all around.
I was struggling to understand why drivers were pitting for no apparent reason (although I’m sure there was some reason within the new format).
I don’t like this format at all (surprise!) and I don’t think the FOM world feed crew does either. The cameras can’t keep up with the obscure activities on the track. I finally gave up and turned to this month’s R&T, with Q2, Q3 as background.
You have to have your lap completed with 3 minutes remaining or be eliminated and that’s only if you are in the top 4. New qualifying is awful again. I love watching cars weighing in with several minutes still left in the session.