Like an undead zombie, Formula 1’s bewildering new 2016 Qualifying format shambled on for yet another week this Saturday in the lead up to the second race of the season in Bahrain. But however ill-conceived this revision to the previously superlative F1 qualifying format one still has to give credit to team Mercedes and their remarkable duo of drivers for continuing to come out on top. Lewis Hamilton gave maximum effort in the twilight of the Arabian desert, attempting to claw back his alpha status by grabbing an impressive pole at the Sakhir circuit and setting the all-time fastest F1 lap there in the process. It was the English Triple World Champion’s astounding 51st career pole position.
Hamilton’s Silver Arrows teammate and archival, Nico Rosberg, winner of four consecutive GP including this year’s opener in Australia, came up short by a whisker-thin .077 seconds. So Mercedes locked out the front row yet again. It remains to be seen, however, if this almost bulletproof team can resolve their niggling starting issues under the new “no clutch coaching” rules, which nearly proved their Achilles heel in Melbourne when they were overtaken as the lights went out by the two Ferraris. Ferrari are certainly hoping that history repeats, as their two aces, Sebastian Vettel & Kimi Raikkonen, posted very representative times to claim P3 and P4 respectively. It seems evident, at least in the early going of this new season, that the Prancing Horses have made up ground on the factory Mercedes team in terms of straight-line speed. Given the right circumstances they may well harry the champions for wins and more than a punter’s chance for a serious duel for the Constructors’ Title. But what the Sucderia has sacrificed in terms of reliability vis a vis performance to get on near-level terms with this era’s predominant team could well prove to be their undoing, as evinced by Raikkonen’s DNF in the first race & Vettel’s rear axel issues in Friday practice.
Daniel Ricciardo was a very impressive P5 for the improving team Red Bull-Tag Heuer, while Mercedes-powered Team Williams was solid with Valtteri Bottas in P6 and Felipe Massa in P7. Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg had a dubious success with P8, which under the current daffy qualifying rules means that he actually has one less set of tires to work with in the race despite making it through to Q3. That left upstart Hass F1’s Romain Grosjean grinning like a Chesire cat in P9 despite being knocked out in Q2. Rounding out the top 10 qualifiers was fiery teenager Max Verstappen for Toro Rosso.
While it wasn’t as dull as the session in Australia, qualifying in Bahrain still wasn’t up to the old standard of excitement that we F1 fans have come to know & love. The crazy countdown method of elimination where hot laps don’t count as a merciless 90-second clock ticks down and there is perverse advantage to be gained by all but the most elite teams by calling it quits early has, again lead to fewer cars on track as the seconds ticked down in each session rather than more. It’s certainly bombed with fans, drivers and teams alike. Time to go back to a system that wasn’t broken in the first place and abandon this gimmicky and unsatisfying new format. Hopefully by China that will be the case.
Top 10 qualifiers from Bahrain:
| POS. | NO. | DRIVER | TEAM | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | LAPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 44 | LEWIS HAMILTON | MERCEDES | 1:31.391 | 1:30.039 | 1:29.493 | 14 |
| 2 | 6 | NICO ROSBERG | MERCEDES | 1:31.325 | 1:30.535 | 1:29.570 | 13 |
| 3 | 5 | SEBASTIAN VETTEL | FERRARI | 1:31.636 | 1:30.409 | 1:30.012 | 14 |
| 4 | 7 | KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN | FERRARI | 1:31.685 | 1:30.559 | 1:30.244 | 14 |
| 5 | 3 | DANIEL RICCIARDO | RED BULL RACING | 1:31.403 | 1:31.122 | 1:30.854 | 12 |
| 6 | 77 | VALTTERI BOTTAS | WILLIAMS | 1:31.672 | 1:30.931 | 1:31.153 | 12 |
| 7 | 19 | FELIPE MASSA | WILLIAMS | 1:32.045 | 1:31.374 | 1:31.155 | 10 |
| 8 | 27 | NICO HULKENBERG | FORCE INDIA | 1:31.987 | 1:31.604 | 1:31.620 | 15 |
| 9 | 8 | ROMAIN GROSJEAN | HAAS | 1:32.005 | 1:31.756 | 9 | |
| 10 | 33 | MAX VERSTAPPEN | TORO ROSSO | 1:31.888 | 1:31.772 | 9 |
In other news, McLaren’s Fernando Alonso was replaced this race weekend by impressive young Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne after the Spanish former 2-time champion was ruled out by FIA doctors due to injuries suffered to his lung and ribs as a consequence of this horror shunt in Melbourne.
Vandoorne promptly out-qualified his vastly more experienced teammate Jenson Button. Likely the race will be a different story for the rookie. Nevertheless McLaren’s 2016 Honda-powered chassis does look a lot more competitive than last year’s pig.
Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.
Tomorrow’s Grand Prix airs live at the civilized hour of 11AM Eastern on NBC Sports. Hope to see you then to find out if the blood red Ferrari’s can skunk the Silver Arrows at the start for a second race in a row.