Rosberg on pole in Bahrain for Mercedes one-two

Nico Rosberg is on pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix after qualifying 0.279 seconds ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton, who looked good for pole position early in the session, was unable to piece together a fast lap in the dying seconds of qualifying and will start from P2 for tomorrow’s race. It is the first Mercedes one-two on the grid for a race this season, and their first since the British Grand Prix of 2013.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo drove a near perfect qualifying evening and will start on third for tomorrow’s race with Williams’ Valtteri Bottas starting fourth. Sergio Perez starts from fifth ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen. Button, Massa, Magnussen and Alonso make up the remainder of the top ten on the grid.

As qualifying got underway, Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez was the first out on track, ultimately setting the bar with the first timed lap of the session, a 1:38.521 having locked up and running wide into turn 10. He fast laps then started to roll thick and fast and Gutierrez was quickly knocked down the time sheets.

The slowest contenders; Caterham, Marussia and Lotus (in Bahrain) all took to the track immediately on the soft rubber compound looking to set their quickest times without delay whilst the other teams used the medium Pirelli compound to set their initial laps. With eight minutes left in the session, Mercedes were once again ahead of the pack with a Hamilton-Rosberg one-two, before being knocked off by a string of quicker cars.

Sebastian Vettel, who ended the final free practice of the weekend in the gravel trap, did well to reach ninth in the early stages of Q1 on the medium compound, but quickly took to the track again with four minutes remaining to set a lap on the soft tyre – something he was not able to do earlier today. He quickly moved two places up into seventh, but still almost a second off the pace of Hulkenberg who had moved into provisional first.

As the chequered flag fell on Q1, Lotus F1’s Pastor Maldonado missed out on Q2 by just two hundredths of a second and will start in P17 with Sauber’s Adrian Sutil behind in 18th. The 19th and 21st placed Caterham’s of Kobayashi and Ericcson are split by the Marussia’s of Jules Bianchi and last placed Max Chilton.

Hulkenberg and the Williams’ of Bottas and Massa started off Q2, whilst Hulkenberg, Perez, Kvyat, Vergne and Gutierrez set off using the soft tyres they used in Q1 for their first runs. Bottas set the Q2 pace at 1:36.070, but was quickly knocked off provisional pole as those behind started to cross the line faster. Just a handful of minutes later and Bottas found himself sitting P12 in the elimination zone with under four minutes left in the session.

With the session coming to an end, the biggest surprise of the afternoon would be that Sebastian Vettel would not make it to Q3, dropping out of the second qualifying session 1.277 seconds off the pace of Lewis Hamilton’s pace setting lap. Vettel will start P11 tomorrow in front of the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg. Toro Rosso duo Danill Kvyat and Jean-Eric Vergne start P13 and P14 with Sauber’s Gutierrez and Lotus’ Romain Grosjean 15th and 16th.

Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, already the fastest people on track going into Q3, went into the final session of qualifying with two new sets of soft Pirelli tyres available for them to use. Ricciardo, Perez, Bottas and Massa also had two new sets of soft rubber available to them leaving Button, Alonso, Magnussen and Raikkonen who only had one set.

Once again, Bottas set the pace in Q3 with the first fastest lap of the session, a 1:34.247, followed by Perez and Massa before all three were knocked down by Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg who set a blindingly quick lap of 1:33.185. Lewis Hamilton then crossed the line into second place; 0.279 seconds behind Rosberg.

Alonso’s first flying lap of Q3 was 2.5 seconds off the pace of the Mercedes at the front whilst Kevin Magnussen also found himself over two seconds off the pace with just four minutes left in Q3. Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen remained in the garage until the final minutes of the session and with just three minutes remaining, head out onto the track for just one flying lap.

It would prove to be a manic end to Qualifying in Bahrain as all cars involved in the top ten shootout came onto the track for one final hot lap. With no margin for error though, positions would almost go unchanged and Nico Rosberg’s 1:33.185 set earlier in the session was enough for the German to clinch pole with teammate Lewis Hamilton P2. Mercedes lock out the front row of the grid for tomorrow’s race.

The 2014 Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix starts tomorrow at 18:00 local time.