‘Mad Max’, who toured most of the Formula One World Championship circuits last year, has already begun his quest for a new title, after during the three free practice sessions this Thursday and this Friday and the tests last week he hid his pace at one lap and opted to do long runs.
With four minutes left before the traffic light turned red, the Dutchman took the slipstream of a McLaren to, from the beginning of the lap, have an extra advantage in the first sector, which allowed him to overtake at the finish line to the Monegasque Leclerc, who, Although he tried twice, he could not reduce the time of the impregnable Verstappen, who wants to continue with the dominance exhibited during the last two years.
The Dutch driver himself commented at the end of the session that he was somewhat surprised by the level shown and that this first position was “unexpected”, but, at the same time, he highlighted that in Q3 the car improved compared to the free practice sessions, in which he had not been completely consistent, and above all he took advantage of the slipstream of the McLarens to end up leading the qualification.
Sainz also took advantage of the slipstream, who was nevertheless overtaken at the finish line by the British George Russell (Mercedes), who finished third, and by Leclerc, in addition to Verstappen, despite the fact that during the tests and even in the third free practice session he seemed to show one point more than the rest of the grid.
Despite scoring the first half at finish Q1 and show the best time last week in the tests, his two best laps were not enough to be on the front line and the Madrid native will start from fourth place, just ahead of ‘Checo’ Pérez, who at no time seemed to catch the rhythm of the session, and his friend Fernando Alonso.
The starting grid for the season opener 👀#F1 #BahrainGP pic.twitter.com/kwFLLtnFrW
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 1, 2024
The Asturian started with a disadvantage compared to the rest of the drivers, since he only had new soft tires and decided to change the strategy. While the nine remaining drivers took to the track twice in Q3, he took advantage of all of them’s rest with five minutes remaining to go out and look for the best time.
He tried and placed third, especially thanks to a great second sector, but the fact of having only one bullet ended up penalizing the Spaniard, who watched from the garage how the other drivers were improving their times while he was dropping positions to the sixth place.
In any case, Alonso was ahead of the two McLarens, as the British Lando Norris and the Australian Oscar Piatri, They were seventh and eighth, respectively, while the British Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) did not achieve his best classification and finished ninth, three places ahead of the Canadian Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), who did not even go to the last round and finished tenth. second.
Behind, the disappointment of the day were the Alpine, as the Frenchman Esteban Ocon, nineteenth, and the Frenchman Pierre Gasly, last, signed the last two positions and ratified all the analyzes prior to this weekend, which assured that the car Gaul could be the worst car at the beginning of the season.
Career pole #33 for @Max33Verstappen 👏#F1 #BahrainGP pic.twitter.com/eR0uUybV7f
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 1, 2024
#Verstappen #appears #big #moment #takes #pole #Bahrain