Disappointing P15 for Max in Bahrain qualifying

Published on 18 April 2015 by Mike Motilall

Max Verstappen will start from the fifteenth spot this Sunday in the Bahrain Grand Prix. After having made it to the second part of qualifying, the Scuderia Toro Rosso-driver got stuck there, while his team mate, Carlos Sainz, progressed to Q3 and reeled in the ninth position. After an exciting grand finale, pole position went, for the fourth time in a row now, to the current World champion Lewis Hamilton. He managed to stay ahead of Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari by some four-tenths.

“This wasn’t a great qualification”, Max honestly conveys to Verstappen.nl. “During the third free practice, earlier today, the setup on the car was slightly better. Although the car was over steering a lot. So we decided to change the settings before the qualification, but the problem shifted the other way round. Now I was suffering from a lot of under steer and when the car is on new tyres, that’s hurting a lot. So that wasn’t ok. Tomorrow we’ll do our best to do a good start and make the most of the fact that we have one more set of soft tyres available.”

While in Sakhir the sun is slowly setting and darkness falls, the temperature drops to about 25° C. When the lights turn green, everyone initially has a time noted on the medium compound tyres. They later switch to the softs in the first part of the qualification. By the time that Max gets round to do this, he has dropped to P16 and knows that he has to make up for lost time. Despite the pressure, the Dutchman is with a 1:35.611 and P14 just fast enough to reach Q2. His team mate, Sainz, also makes the cut (1:35.371). Strikingly, one of the first five dropouts is Daniil Kvyat, who gets stuck on P17.

After having reviewed the data in his car, Max clocks, in his first flying lap in Q2 and on the softs, the seventh time (1:35.773). While the field keeps improving their time, the youngster returns on the asphalt the very last minute, with some fresh softs strapped on and some more front wing. But it’s to no avail, because the 1:35.103 that follows, puts Max on P15. From that grid position he will start the race, this Sunday, at five o’clock.

In Q2, Sainz does a great job and finishes tenth (1:34.641) allowing him to partake in the final part of the qualification. He manages to keep only Romain Grosjean at bay, while the lot from the faster teams fight it out on track. In the dying seconds of qualification, Vettel grabs pole, but respectively Valtteri Bottas (Williams), Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) and Nico Rosberg fail to beat him. The Brit Hamilton shows that he is the man to beat this year: when the checkered flag is shown, he has 'as usual' outpaced everyone again.

Results Bahrain Grand Prix - Bahrain International Circuit - Saturday 18 April

 P No Driver 		Team 			Q1 	 Q2 	  Q3  	   Laps 
 1 44 Lewis Hamilton 	Mercedes 		1:33.928 1:32.669 1:32.571 16 
 2  5 Sebastian Vettel 	Ferrari 		1:34.919 1:33.623 1:32.982 12 
 3  6 Nico Rosberg 	Mercedes 		1:34.398 1:33.878 1:33.129 16 
 4  7 Kimi Raikkonen 	Ferrari 		1:34.568 1:33.540 1:33.227 15 
 5 77 Valtteri Bottas 	Williams 		1:34.161 1:33.897 1:33.381 16 
 6 19 Felipe Massa 	Williams 		1:34.488 1:33.551 1:33.744 16 
 7  3 Daniel Ricciardo 	Red Bull Racing 	1:34.691 1:34.403 1:33.832 15 
 8 27 Nico Hulkenberg 	Force India 		1:35.653 1:34.613 1:34.450 15 
 9 55 Carlos Sainz 	Toro Rosso 		1:35.371 1:34.641 1:34.462 18 
10  8 Romain Grosjean 	Lotus 			1:35.007 1:34.123 1:34.484 20 
11 11 Sergio Perez 	Force India 		1:35.451 1:34.704   	   12 
12 12 Felipe Nasr 	Sauber 			1:35.310 1:34.737   	   9 
13  9 Marcus Ericsson 	Sauber 			1:35.438 1:35.034   	   9 
14 14 Fernando Alonso 	McLaren 		1:35.205 1:35.039  	   10 
15 33 Max Verstappen 	Toro Rosso 		1:35.611 1:35.103   	   14 
16 13 Pastor Maldonado 	Lotus 			1:35.677     		   7 
17 26 Daniil Kvyat 	Red Bull Racing 	1:35.800     		   6 
18 28 Will Stevens 	Marussia 		1:38.713     		   6 
19 98 Roberto Merhi 	Marussia 		1:39.722     		   6 
20 22 Jenson Button 	McLaren 		No time     		   1 
      Q1 107% Time   				1:40.502

On Twitter and Facebook we'll keep you updated throughout the weekend followed by a full report on Verstappen.nl at the end of the day’s action. You can find the schedule for the Grand Prix here.