Official F1 Journal Formula 1 Friday Round Up- Bahrain

After a surprising result in Practice 2 and the Mercedes finding some real speed we hadn't see so far in 2024, it was a hotly anticipated Practice 3 before the cars show their true pace in Qualifying later today.

Practice 3

It was a very slow start to practice with nobody going out until 10 minutes had passed and even then we only saw Lewis Hamilton on track till we saw the 2 Ferrari's come out wit 45 minutes of the session remaining soon joined by the 2 Stake Sauber cars and Alex Albon. 
It wasnt till 30 minutes were left on the clock we saw more cars on track and come competitive laps started to be completed. 
Russell went top, faster than the Ferrari's first efforts, Alonso went purple for his first run as Norris made a mega catch when his Mclaren snapped on him over a curb. 
Perez and Verstappen were the only cars out doing Hard tyre runs so far in the session. 

22 minutes to go and we started to see some Qualifying simulation laps. Tsuonda put his car 4th after his first flying lap, Russell went 2nd and the Redbulls returned to the pits to put of some soft rubber. 
Perez set the fatsest time on his first lap out on the Softs qyickly beaten by Vertsappen on the same tyre. 
Stroll jumper to 3rd untill team mate Alonso went fastest pushing stroll down to 4th. Norris despite a mistake in sector 2 put his mclare 3rd fastest and team mate Piastri went 4th until Russell majinally beat his time and slpit the Mclarens on the timing screen. 

After all the Qualifying runs it was a mixed up final order. Sainz kept the top spot at the end of Practice 3, followed in 2nd by Alonso jusy 0.141 behind the lead Ferrari, Verstappen was 3rd, Leclerc, 4th, Norris 5th, Russell 6th and Piastri 7th. Hamilton only managed 12th, beaten by Hulkenberg, Stroll and Ricciardo.
It really was a quiet session, and gave us no more of a clue who will top Qualifying than we started testing with. But onto Qualifying to see how they really shake out when the sandbags come off.

Practice 3 Result

1 SAI         2 ALO
3 VER       4 LEC
5 NOR       6 RUS
7 PIA         8 PER
9 HUL        10 STR
11 RIC       12 HAM
13 TSU      14 MAG
15 ALB       16 ZHO
17 BOT       18 OCO
19 SAR        20 GAS

Qualifying 

Q1

It was a slow start to Qualifying with just the 2 Ferarri's and 2 Apline's on track untill the clock counted down to 12 minutes when the rest of the grid came out to set their laps. The Ferrari's attempted to set a fast enough lap on the Medium tyre but quickly realized it wasn't going to work and put for Softs to join the rest of the cars out on track. 

After every ones  first laps it was Sainz on top followed by Vertsappen and Norris. 
3 minutes remaining and the track was full to capacity as with all 20 cars trying to get through to the next round. Piastri could only manage 8th fastest, Bottas got his Sauber up to 11th but wasn't safe from the drop zone with his rivals all improving. Magnussen jumped to 10th as Albon beat Piastri to go 8th. Stroll set a stonking lap going 2nd fastest, Ricciardo and Tsunoda managed to get out of the knock out 5 but pushed both Sauber drivers in it. Leclerc pushed and his Ferrari went 5th but team mate Sainz set a blistering lap to go fastest.

Q1 Result 

​1 SAI            2 STR
3 VER           4 NOR
5 NOR          6 PER
7 LEC           8 RUS
9 ALB          10 HAM
11 TSU        12 PIA
13 RIC         14 HUL
15 MAG       16 BOT
17 ZHO        18 SAR
19 OCO        20 GAS

Q2

Unlike Q1 all the cars were straight out for the start of Q2, Magnussen was the first man to start a lap with 11 minutes to go.
Mclaren were the first of the top 5 cars to set a time and both drivers made mistakes on their laps and despite going 1st and second fastest as soon as the other drivers completed their laps the Mclaren's dropped down the order and after every one had completed their first laps it was Verstappen top, Perez 2nd and Norris 3rd Piastri. 

4 minutes to go and its go time as all the cars came onto the track, Hulkenberg set a brillaint lap to go 2nd fastest, Piastri could only manage 4th, before Norris beat his time and took the 4th spot. Leclerc didn't have the best last run but luckily he had time to go again because he clearly had the pace as on his 2nd attempt he went fastest of all in Q2 beating Verstappens best by 0.209s
Russell and Hamilton cut it fine and were in the drop zone when their laps started but both did enough to get through to the top 10 shoot out by going 4th (Hamilton) and 6th (Russell).

Q2 Result 

​1  LEC           2 VER
3 SAI             4 HAM
5 ALO            6 HUL
7 RUS           8 PER
9 NOR         10 PIA
11 TSU        12 STR
13 ALB        14 RIC
15 MAG     

When the 2 Mercedes crossed the line and improved, it knocked Tsunoda and Stroll down both cars we thought had the speed to get through. 

Q3

Again all the car went straight out but with the exception of Alonso who only had the tyres to complete 1 flying lap in the top 10 shoot out so waited in the pits till the other cars had completed their first timed runs. 
Norris and Piastri ran scrubbed soft tyres for their first runs, Piastri didnt pull together the best lap while team mate Norris had a great lap only 0.2 off Verstappens 1 run time on a new set of Softs, after the first round of runs it was Verstappen fastest Leclerc 2nd and after a great lap Russell in 3rd.
Alonso came out for his run with 4 minutes on the clock with the track to himself and set a solid time to go 3rd ahead of Russell.

2 minutes on the clock and the final push of Q3 began. The Mclarens lead the way again, this time on a set of new soft tyres but Lando made a mistake in sector 1 losing 4 tenths, he managed to make up .2 in sector 2 but just couldn't improve anymore than 6th but it is looking promising for the Mclaren's if they can get a clean lap. Hulkenberg couldn't better his 10th place, Russell did what Norris couldn't and put together a great lap to end the day in 3rd, Hamilton was disappointed with 8th being his best before being pushed down to 9th by Leclerc's stella lap to put himself 2nd by just over 2 tenths while his team mate finished forth fastest.

It was a much closer Qualifying, than anyone expected despite it being the same face at the top of the times, if the others car are as close to Verstappen on race pace as they are in Qualifying then we could see some great racing for the lead. Despite not showing their true pace in Qualifying the Mclaren's showed really solid pace on their soft tyre long runs in Practice 2 and were the closest to max of any team meaning they could take the fight to Redbull in the race in a way they couldnt in Qualifying!!

Q3 Result

1 VER                 2 LEC +0.228
3 RUS +0.306     4 SAI +0.328
5 PER + 0.358    6 ALO +0.363
7 NOR + 0.435    8 PIA + 0.504
9 HAM + 0.531   10 HUL + 1.223

All in all Qualifying only made the excitement for tomorrows race even greater. 
Lets hope we see lots of on track battles that include Verstappen this season!!!
ON TO THE RACE......... 

Joanna Blackmore
​Writer @f1journal.co.uk