Hamilton’s Mercedes still tops the time sheets but Ferrari for real and gaining as Vettel out-qualifies Rosberg again

For a moment during Q2 in Bahrain on Saturday it appeared that Mercedes was sandbagging the field, holding something back only to blow everyone away and again prove their untouchable dominance. But while Lewis Hamilton ‘s Silver Arrow remained the car and driver to beat, claiming his remarkable 4th straight Pole to start the season, Ferrari proved that they are genuinely up for the fight with Sebastian Vettel outpacing Hamilton’s teammate Nico Rosberg to seize 2nd on the grid for Sunday’s race. After last week’s excuse-making whinging during the post race press conference for his second best performance respective to his dominant teammate and rival, Rosberg must’ve been absolutely muttering to himself after Q3. Because not only will he have to deal with Vettel in front of him but he will likely find himself harassed from behind by the other Prancing Horse of Kimi Raikkonen, who took P4 and seems to have found his good form again in this year’s vastly improved model. One thing’s for certain: the opening lap tomorrow should be very interesting at the least and perhaps even completely fraught and frantic as those four blokes jockey for an edge. But somehow I reckon Hamilton will sail away from the mayhem behind him and the others will be left to pick up the positions from second on down. That is if Vettel doesn’t shove the Englishman straight off the track on the front straight.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

Williams again showed decent Qualifying pace but it remains to be seen if they can manage their tires well enough in a Grand Prix to return to the podium after their terrific 2014 season. Valtteri Bottas drove an excellent Q3 fast lap to pip teammate Felipe Massa for P5 by less than half a second. Daniel Ricciardo gave Red Bull some hope after teammate Daniil Kvyat was bounced out of Q1 with power plant gremlins. The Aussie ace was able to grab P7 with a gutsy fast lap that was just an eyelash behind Massa. Likewise, Nico Hulkenberg broke through for troubled Force India for the first Top 10 starting position for the team this year: the excellent German driver will start P8 on Sunday. Rookie Carlos Sainz out-qualified his 17-year-old teammate Max Verstappen in P9 and Romain Grosjean grabbed P10 for up-and-down Lotus.

McLaren had a Jekyll and Hyde weekend with Fernando Alonso’s Honda-powered MP4-30 showing dynamic improvement from the beginning of the season to come home P14. But Jenson Button’s car was plagued by electronic issues throughout Friday practice and they bit him again  today when he failed to complete a qualifying lap. The English former champion will start dead last and hope he can fight his way through the field and at least finish the race. Finally, Sauber’s Cinderella start may be about to strike midnight, as Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson could do no better than P12 and P13. But that’s Formula 1 — if you’re not improving race to race you’re going backwards.

Top 10 Qualifiers for the Bahrain Grand Prix:

Complete Qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s day-into-night race in the desert at Bahrain International Circuit begins at a very civilized 11AM here on the East Coast of the US and can be seen live on NBCSN. Ferrari is getting closer to be sure but do they really have the race pace to grab another win over King Lewis & Mercedes and pull the upset like Vettel did in Malaysia? Well worth finding out tomorrow so I hope to see you then!