Bahrain GP Qualifying Report

It was straight into drama at Bahrain, LeClerc lost a piece of his wheel arch or "wheel brow", which brought out the Red Flag. I had assumed that the Red Flag was an unseen smash but no, just to collect a piece of carbon fibre.  Note to self - add extra hour to all Qualifying session recordings.

Alonso is definitely playing in the top tier with his Brawn...sorry Aston Martin.  Russell found some time and the Ferraris were flying too.  Stroll had his time deleted, which put the sore-handed Canadian under pressure (the cameras did find a disappointed-looking Felipe Drugovich, the reserve driver for the race).  Everyone went out for a final flying lap at the end of Q1 except for Sainz who was sitting in first.  The track was getting quicker and quicker, even though the night was drawing in.  Kinda rookie De Vries was out first, followed by Sargeant, Gasly Magnussen and Piastri ahead of him in the grid.  Norris was lucky to keep his position as it was identical to the Williams but he set his time first.  All three rookies were out.  More notably the returning Hulkenberg was 6th ahead of his team mate out in 18th.  Albon finished 9th, a strong showing from him.  Stroll was behind Alonso in 6th, showing the Aston Martin might be a strong contender this year.

In Q2, the Red Bulls came back strong and Albon suffered a broken front wing on his Williams and didn't set a time.  It was all shaken up in the final seconds, Ocon and Hulkenberg made it through with Norris, Bottas, Zhou, Tsunoda and Albon out.

In the final session, it was all plain sailing until LeClerc jumped out of his car after his first lap to save a pair of soft tyres for race day.  Hulkenberg didn't even attempt a lap so qualified 10th.  Ocon trounced his new team mate, Gasly to qualify 9th.  In the end the Red Bulls made it look easy, taking the front row followed by both Ferraris, knocking Alonso back to 5th next to Russell.  He was ahead of his team mate, Hamilton in 7th, then Stroll.

There were lots of shots of Mick Schumacher sat next to Toto Wolff watching in the pit lane.  When Williams say they are racing Alpha Tauri and Haas, does that mean they've discounted McLaren as lesser competitors?  McLaren certainly look to be struggling, in the same boat as the ailing Mercedes.

My podium prediction for the race is LeClerc, Verstappen and Alonso....let's see.  It feels both wide open and a foregone conclusion all at once.