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Formula 1
Bahrain GP
F1 Bahrain GP Live Commentary and Updates - FP3 & Qualifying
Friday's action from the first round of the 2024 Formula 1 season.
Lewis Hamilton led a surprise Mercedes 1-2 at the end of practice on the opening day of track action, but many expect Red Bull to surge back to the front come qualifying.
FP3 begins at 12:30pm GMT (3:30pm local time) with qualifying at 4pm GMT (7pm local time).
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Little to choose between Verstappen and Leclerc at the top then, with Sainz slotting into third behind Russell. Norris is shuffled back to fifth ahead of Perez, Hamilton, Hulkenberg and Piastri.
Where is Alonso you might ask? Well, he's delayed his first run and is out now on a clear track for what may prove his only Q3 run.
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"Ride is really poor at Turn 6, I almost lost it" is the verdict from Russell, as Alonso begins his flyer.
As the rest begin to trickle out for their final runs, Alonso completes his first lap which puts him third, just 0.121s down on Verstappen.
Perez follows the two Ferraris out of the pits and will be the last driver to set a time before the flag falls. He will though have to jump out of the way of a lot of drivers coming in hot behind him on their flyers.
Piastri improves to seventh, knocking Perez back one spot.
And Norris improves too, but it's not enough to bump him ahead of Sainz into fifth.
Checkered flag
As Russell improves to third, Verstappen goes faster again and lowers his benchmark time to 1.29.179s. Leclerc can't get close and it's pole to the Red Bull driver.
Leclerc improved but was still 0.228s down on the three-time champion who begins 2024 as he did 2023 on pole. Sainz and Perez both shuffle Alonso back, with the Aston driver demoted to sixth ahead of Norris, Piastri, a subdued Hamilton and Hulkenberg.
Intriguingly, Leclerc's Q2 time would have been good enough for pole, but he couldn't match it when it counted in Q3. However, that shows it may not all be one way traffic...
Russell ensures there are three different manufacturers in the top three, 0.306s down on Verstappen. For housekeeping, we've been told he will face no further action over not heeding the race director's instructions regarding maximum delta times.
It's a 33rd career pole then for Verstappen, who moves level in the all-time rankings with Prost and Clark. Only Hamilton, Schumacher, Senna and Vettel have more.
If we're drawing up a team-by-team pecking order purely based on one-lap pace, then we're left with:
1) Red Bull
2) Ferrari
3) Mercedes
4) Aston Martin
5) McLaren
6) Haas
7) RB
8) Williams
9) Sauber
10) Alpine
Of course, that's only a snapshot from one qualifying session, but there's plenty to be encouraged about if you're new Haas boss Ayao Komatsu. It was a real scrap to make Q3, but Hulkenberg made sure he was on the right side of it - even if he couldn't clamber any further up the order than tenth.
Another driver who will be taking encouragement from that session is Tsunoda, whose F1 future will require him to show well against established Grand Prix winner Ricciardo. Beating the Australian in qualifying for the season opener is nothing to sniff at.
It will be interesting to hear from Hamilton now the session has concluded where he felt the deficit to Russell originated from. It was only a little over two tenths, but it makes all the difference in such a tightly-bunched group with Russell third and Hamilton ninth.
Breaking news
If you missed any of the action from qualifying, catch up with the full report from Jake Boxall-Legge here: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f1-bahrain-gp-verstappen-beats-leclerc-to-first-pole-of-2024/10581873/
What to make of that qualifying session then? Red Bull topping the pile wasn't entirely unexpected from what we've deduced over the winter, but Ferrari is perhaps closer than expected given Leclerc could have taken pole by reproducing his Q2 time.
Mercedes was correct not to read too much into its chart-topping efforts in FP2, but it does appear to have moved ahead of McLaren as Norris/Piastri proved fairly evenly-matched - just the wrong side of Alonso for the papaya team's liking.
And the midfield battle appears to be just as congested as ever, although whether Alpine will be a part of that is up for debate.
All told, we've answered a few questions, but plenty more have sprung up. So there's plenty of reasons to tune in tomorrow...
We'll bring our Live text to a close there, but do keep an eye out on the website for all the latest news and reaction from the year's first qualifying session as it comes in from Bahrain. Thank you very much as always for joining us, and be sure to come back tomorrow as we bring you updates from what promises to be an intriguing 2024 season-opener from roughly 14:00 GMT. See you then!
By: Autosport Staff
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