Saturday 15 April 2017

Valtteri Bottas takes pole in Bahrain GP ahead of Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton was ahead by 0.052secs after the first laps in the top 10 shoot-out but appeared to have a scrappy final lap, allowing Bottas to edge ahead.
It was Mercedes' first front-row lock-out of 2017, with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in third 0.478secs off the pace.
Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo took fourth ahead of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

Mercedes' special engine mode

Mercedes' advantage of nearly half a second was by far their biggest margin over Ferrari so far this season.
But an advantage in qualifying does not necessarily mean Mercedes' superiority will translate into the race on Sunday.
Mercedes have a qualifying engine mode that adds more extra power than their rivals; and Hamilton expects Ferrari to have an advantage on tyre usage in the heat.
For Bottas, who has replaced world champion Nico Rosberg following the German's retirement, it was his most convincing qualifying performance of the year, after trailing Hamilton by 0.2-0.3secs in the first two races.




Hamilton was quickest in the first two sessions and on their first runs in final qualifying, but was made to pay the price on his final lap for a slow middle sector, in which he lost 0.2secs, and then a mistake at the final corner, where he needed to correct a slide on entry.

How Bottas did it

It was an impressive performance by Bottas, especially after a dispiriting race in China last weekend where he spun behind the safety car and finished sixth.
The Finn appeared to adjust his approach to counter Hamilton's pace.
He had been quicker than Hamilton in the first two sectors of his first lap only for Hamilton to find extra pace in the third.



'Been a while...' The last time a Finn took an F1 pole was back in 2008 for the British Grand Prix - in which Hamilton was also doing the congratulating. That time for Heikki Kovalainen

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