F1 is back with the first qualifying of 2024 - Bahrain qualifying

Esther Kienapfel

Mar 1, 20242 min read

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen.

This very Friday the 2024 season of formula one has finally started again and with all the testing and free practices we for sure already had two exciting weeks.

And this Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying was no less exciting, as all of the cars finally revealed bits of their true strengths.

The qualifying started off with Ferrari showing pretty good times while Alpine seemed to struggle a lot, like we had already seen in the free practices. No surprise, both Alpines didn’t make it to Q2, Gasly starting in p20 and Ocon in p19 tomorrow. P18 will be occupied by Williams driver Sargeant, p17 by Zhou and p16 by Bottas, the two Kick Sauber drivers.

In Q2 we ultimately got to see a fragment of the true power of the RB20 in Verstappens hands, landing him great times one after another. Ferrari too showed great times, Leclerc and Sainz being on top of the grid at the end of the second qualifying session. Out were Magnussen (p15), Ricciardo (p14), Albon (p13), Stroll (p12) and Tsunoda (p11), even though all of their times were remarkably close to one another.

The third round of qualifying was no less nerve-wrecking than the other two. All of the drivers kept besting each other’s times and even until the last second you could not guess who would be on the pole tomorrow. Since Q2 Leclerc and Verstappen had an intense battle for the top.

In the end Verstappen landed the first pole of the season, Leclerc close behind. Russell claimed third place, with Sainz only being 2 hundreds of a second behind him on p4. Perez will start in p5, Aston Martin’s Alonso in p6 and McLaren drivers Norris and Piastri following on p7 and p8, while Hamilton and Hulkenberg will start on p9 and p10.

With that thrilling of a qualifying, we are all ready for an electrifying race, looking forward to see the race pace of the new cars.

One last time good night before its lights out and away we go into the first Grand Prix of the 2024 formula one season.