Russell misses pole to Bottas for another Mercedes front-row lockout

Sakhir, 5 Dec 2020: Valtteri Bottas took his fourth pole position of the year by edging new Mercedes team-mate George Russell by just 0.026s in qualifying for the Sakhir Grand Prix as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took third just three hundredths of a second further back.

In Q1 Verstappen was one of the last to take to the track but when he did the Dutchman quickly jumped to the top of the timesheet with a lap of 0:54.037. That remained the benchmark for the bulk of the session, but late in the session Bottas bolted on a set of soft tyres and on the4 red-banded rubber he was able to claim top spot a little over a tenth ahead of the Red Bull driver.

Behind Russell was third ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris who had to make a late charge after having an early run deleted for infringing track limits. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly took fifth place ahead of Racing Point’s Sergio Pérez and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.

There was a slightly nervous end to the segment for second Red Bull driver Alex Albon, however. Banking on the safety of his early time of 54.620 his team kept him the garage on the final run and as rivals’ final times came in the Thai driver fell down the order. Fortunately his fall halted at P15 and he went through to Q2 eight hundredths of a second ahead of the first driver eliminated, Kevin Magnussen. 

Alongside the Haas driver, Williams pair Nicholas Latifi and Jack Aitken, Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen and Haas’ Pietro Fittipaldi. 

In the second segment the Mercedes drivers, both Red Bulls and the Ferrari drievrs went out on medium tyres but while their initial times looked good, the gaps were too tight and in the closing stages every car went out on track again to try to ensure progress. 

After moving to soft tyres, Verstappen jumped to the top of table with a lap of 53.647, a time that would hold good until the chequered flag. Behind him Pérez took second place ahead of Bottas, Sainz and Russell. Leclerc went through in sixth place ahead of Kvyat, Ricciardo and Gasly. 

Out, though, went Renault’s Esteban Ocon and two hundredths of a second behind him, Alex Albon. The Thai driver had a poor second sector on his final flying lap and as the lap ebbed away he could find no improvement in the final stretch and so was eliminated in P12 ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, the Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi and the McLaren of Lando Norris. 

In Q3 Verstappen initially claimed provisional pole with a lap of 53.591 with Leclerc putting in a superb lap to take a provisional front row spot. Both Mercedes drivers had run worn softs tyres on their opening run however and a second run on new rubber pushed both Bottas and Russell ahead of Verstappen. In the end Bottas’ second run time of 53.377 was good enough to take pole but while the Finn couldn’t improve on his third run it briefly looked like Verstappen might challenge it. The Dutchman set the fastest third sector but it wasn’t enough as Russell also improved and in the end Max took third place 0.026s behind Russell and just 0.056s off pole. 

Behind the top three Leclerc’s time ended up being good enough for fourth and the Ferrari driver will start ahead of Pérez, Kvyat, Ricciardo, Sainz, Gasly and Stroll. 

Valtteri Bottas
It’s great to be on pole, I’m happy with that, but this wasn’t my best qualifying. My second run in Q3 was decent, but I think there was still a bit of time missing in Turn 7 and 8. I was the first car out on track on the final run, so I didn’t have a tow and ultimately couldn’t improve. It was fairly close in the end, so I’m pleased it was enough for pole position. It’s great to see George in P2 and that we managed to lock out the front row for the team. I’m not really surprised to see him up there, he kept improving throughout the weekend and particularly through qualifying. We’re starting on the Medium tyre tomorrow, which should put us in a good position in terms of strategy. Max is going to have an advantage for the race start itself with the softer tyre, but we think for the race overall we’re on the better tyre. The track is quite bumpy and it’s actually fairly easy to follow other cars thanks to the tow, but we’re in the best possible position for tomorrow and are looking forward to a fun race.
 
George Russell
Valtteri has pushed Lewis a huge amount in qualifying over the years, so I’m really pleased to have finished Q3 just behind him and to be on the front row for tomorrow. It’s been incredibly intense with so much to learn and such a different way of driving in this car. I tried a lot of things in FP3, which didn’t go well at all. After final practice, I’d have been happy to just get through to Q3, so I was a bit nervous heading into qualifying. But I managed to get in the groove and was getting better and better every lap. Obviously, I’m a bit gutted to miss out on pole by 20 milliseconds, but if you’d told me last week that I’d be qualifying P2 on the grid, I wouldn’t have believed you. I’ve got nobody in front of me tomorrow, which I’ve not experienced for a long time. It’s going to be a really tricky race on such a short track layout, but we’re in a good position starting on the Mediums. I’ll give it my all and see what I can do.
 
Toto Wolff
Scoring a front row lockout in such a close qualifying session is a fantastic result for the team. This circuit is so short and with lap times below one minute, it was always going to produce very tight gaps and we saw that with less than a tenth between P1 and P3. I’m really happy with the result, Valtteri put in a good lap in Q3, which was enough for him to take pole position. George has settled in really well, particularly when you consider the circumstances, so I’m really pleased with his performance and it’s great to see him up there on the front row. This obviously puts us in a good position for tomorrow and we’re starting on the Medium tyre, which we feel is the best compound for the race. It’s going to be challenging and a bit of a step into the unknown on this track and with so many laps. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens and it’s sure to be very exciting.

2020 FIA Formula 1 Sakhir Grand Prix – Qualifying 
1 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 53.377 9 238.956
2 George Russell Mercedes 53.403 0.026 9 238.840
3 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 53.433 0.056 6 238.706
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 53.613 0.236 3 237.904
5 Sergio Pérez Racing Point/Mercedes 53.790 0.413 6 237.122
6 Daniil Kvyat AlphaTauri/Honda 53.906 0.529 5 236.611
7 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 53.957 0.580 6 236.388
8 Carlos Sainz McLaren/Renault 54.010 0.633 6 236.156
9 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri/Honda 54.154 0.777 9 235.528
10 Lance Stroll Racing Point/Mercedes 54.200 0.823 6 235.328
11 Esteban Ocon Renault 53.995 0.348 6 236.221
12 Alexander Albon Red Bull/Honda 54.026 0.379 6 236.086
13 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 54.175 0.528 8 235.437
14 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 54.377 0.730 6 234.562
15 Lando Norris McLaren/Renault 54.693 1.046 6 233.207
16 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 54.705 0.801 9 233.156
17 Nicholas Latifi Williams/Mercedes 54.796 0.892 11 232.768
18 Jack Aitken Williams/Mercedes 54.892 0.988 9 232.361
19 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 54.963 1.059 11 232.061
20 Pietro Fittipaldi Haas/Ferrari 55.426 1.522 11 230.123