Vettel grabs Bahrain pole position

The current double world champion Sebastian Vettel has managed to obtain the pole position for tomorrow’s Bahrain Grand Prix. Vettel’s teammate Mark Webber was very close to give Red Bull a one-two start for the race but during the last few moments of Q3 McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton managed to secure the second spot on the grid.

Even though during the practice session Mercedes AMG had great results, the German team had a very disappointing qualifying session as last week’s Shanghai winner Nico Rosberg will begin the race tomorrow from the 5th place, while Michael Schumacher failed to go beyond Q1. In the first part of Q3, McLaren’s drivers were the fastest on the track but later on Sebastian Vettel managed to do his fastest lap in 1m 32.422s, being less than a tenth of a second faster than Hamilton.

Hamilton’s teammate Jenson Button is going to begin the Bahrain GP from the fourth place on the grid, while Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo had a great Q3, obtaining the sixth place on the grid which is the best result in his F1 career. He will start the race ahead of Grosjean from Lotus and Sauber’s Sergio Perez.

Fernando Alonso for Ferrari managed to qualify for Q3 but he did not do a flying lap, just like Force India’s Paul di Resta. Probably the biggest disappointment of today’s qualifying session was Michael Schumacher’s exit in Q1, a result caused by his Mercedes AMG but also due to Kovalainen’s better result.

Former world champion Kimi Raikkonen will start tomorrow the Bahrain Grand Prix from 11th place, followed by Kobayashi and Hulkenberg. It was yet another awful day for Ferrari’s Felipe Massa who managed to grab only the 14th place on the grid.

Here are the results of the 2012 Bahrain GP qualifying session:

Pos Driver Team Time 
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m32.422s
 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m32.520s  +  0.098
 3.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m32.637s  +  0.215
 4.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m32.711s  +  0.289
 5.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m32.821s  +  0.399
 6.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m32.912s  +  0.490
 7.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m33.008s  +  0.586
 8.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m33.394s  +  0.972
 9.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                No time
10.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   No time
11.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m33.789s  +  1.367
12.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m33.806s  +  1.384
13.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m33.807s  +  1.385
14.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m33.912s  +  1.490
15.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault       1m34.017s  +  1.595
16.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m36.132s  +  3.710
17.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m34.865s  +  2.443
18.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m35.014s  +  2.592
19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m35.823s  +  3.401
20.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m37.683s  +  5.261
21.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m37.883s  +  5.461
22.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       No time
23.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m37.905s  +  5.483
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m38.314s  +  5.892

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