Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Bahrain qualifying review 18.04.2015: Lewis Hamilton stormed to pole position for the 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix, with

Lewis Hamilton stormed to pole position for the 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix, with Nico Rosberg set to line up third on the grid after an enthralling qualifying session under the Sakhir spotlights


•    Lewis took his fourth consecutive pole position of the 2015 season - the 42nd of his Formula One career, his 16th for the Silver Arrows and his first in Bahrain

•    Nico qualified in third position and will start tomorrow's race from the clean side of the grid, directly behind his team-mate

•    Both drivers ran twice in Q1 (Prime/Option) once in Q2 (Option) and twice again in Q3 (used Option/Option), saving one new set of Options for the race




Drivers    No.    Chassis No.    Qualifying 1    Qualifying 2    Qualifying 3

Lewis Hamilton     44     F1 W06 Hybrid/01     1:33.928     P1     1:32.669     P1     1:32.571     P1

Nico Rosberg     6     F1 W06 Hybrid/04     1:34.398     P3     1:33.878     P5     1:33.129     P3

Weather    Hot, dry

Temperatures    Air: 25 °C    Track: 30 - 31 °C




Lewis Hamilton

I'm very happy with pole position. Coming into the weekend, the target was to master this track and get the car exactly how I wanted it here. I've been working hard to improve on every level and have tried to take a nice calm approach to each weekend.


The car has felt how I wanted it to all weekend, so thank you to the team for achieving that; I'm so grateful to have this Mercedes beast underneath me. The laps felt great and I could really put the car right where I needed it through the corners.


It's great to have pole but Ferrari are very quick this weekend and they will be really hard to beat in the race. We're in a good position with these grid slots but we'll need to work hard to make the tyres perform in the right way tomorrow. I'm looking forward to an exciting race.
 


Nico Rosberg

Today I thought too much about the race and that was a mistake, as I didn't get into my rhythm for a perfect Qualifying. So I cannot be happy with the outcome today. Starting behind Sebastian also is really not good. I underestimated him and now I need to make the best of this situation, so I will be pushing a lot in the race.


 I need to have a good start, hope I can catch Seb there and then I need to manage my tyres better than the others.
 



Toto Wolff

This qualifying session confirmed what we have been saying for a number of weeks now; the balance of power has shifted this year and we have a serious challenger at all circuits and in all conditions. Last year, the performance gap meant that we could be reasonably confident of claiming the front row each weekend - but that's not the case any more.


Ferrari has done a great job and they are snapping at our heels. Lewis put in a fantastic lap tonight. We had seen some glimpses of that pace during the session but it needed something special to take pole today. It maybe helped him that he pushed harder on his race start set of tyres in Q2, so he had a better feel for the limit of the track and the tyres.


But this could also have a downside tomorrow, so we must see how that plays out. Nico was just a little bit off Lewis in each sector on the important lap and that was enough for Vettel to slip into second place. Looking ahead, tomorrow will be tougher and it will be closer - but we have a couple of options for how we tackle the race from P1 and P3.


There might be days when we enjoy looking back at the comfort zone we had in 2014 - but the truth is that we all love getting out of bed in the morning and knowing that we have a real fight on our hands. It's good for us and it's good for the sport; that's what motor racing is all about.
 


Paddy Lowe

The weather conditions were always forecast to be windy today and it certainly turned out that way, with a reasonably strong, gusting headwind on the main straight and quite tricky conditions for the drivers. We didn't have a great session in FP3 and headed into qualifying not feeling particularly confident of our pace.


Indeed, as it turned out, nobody was quick enough to make it through Q1 without using Option tyres. We progressed through Q2 with a single run on Options and then elected to save a new set of tyres for the race by running a used set for the first lap in Q3 - just as Ferrari did.


That meant it came down to a final lap battle between our cars and the two Ferraris. Lewis delivered a great pole lap while unfortunately Nico just missed out on a front row place alongside him. All of the top four cars will have a new set of Option tyres available for the race, which will mean it will be extremely close between all of us. We're looking forward to an exciting evening tomorrow.
 

Nicola Armstrong - photos Mercedes