F1 Bahrain GP Live Commentary and Updates - FP3 and Qualifying

Strong showings also by Leclerc for Ferrari and Gasly for AlphaTauri, while there is plenty to contemplate for Vettel at Aston Martin. But, remember, this is just qualifying. The real fun begins tomorrow with the opening race of the 2021 F1 season.

So, that was fun. All the chat and favourite tagging pre-weekend has resulted in Verstappen taking pole position for Red Bull, but he has two Mercedes to fight on his own, with his new team-mate Perez starting outside of the top 10.

Here's the full report on qualifying for the Bahrain GP: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/bahrain-gp-qualifying-shell/5938984/

Top 3 interviewer David Coulthard, who turns 50 today, is presented with a birthday cake by Verstappen but the pole-sitter slams the cake into Coulthard's face. Poor David - but who doesn't love a bit of slapstick cake-related humour.

Bottas on his P3: "Practice today wasn't easy, the balance was a bit better [in qualifying]. In Q3 I only had one set of tyres so it was tricky to compete with Lewis and Max."

Hamilton on his second place in qualifying: "Congratulations to Max. I gave it everything I had but it wasn't enough. I got everything I could from the car. We did a good job coming back from testing and to improve like this."

Verstappen on his pole position: "It all worked out perfectly in qualifying and I'm delighted with pole position. Basically my first lap in Q3 wasn't amazing so I knew there was more in it. But I wasn't sure how much. Luckily, when it mattered, we could perform."

Verstappen takes a sip of water and acts like it is nothing new. All casual. Bet he's buzzing inside.

Leclerc slots into fourth for Ferrari beating Gasly by two-tenths, followed by the McLaren pair as Ricciardo beats team-mate Norris. Sainz will start from P8, with Alonso P9 and Stroll P10.

Verstappen takes pole position for the 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix! Hamilton is second with Bottas in third.

Bottas duly stays at the front of the train ahead of team-mate Hamilton at the start of the final timed laps. All or nothing now.

Just before Stroll completed that lap, the other nine drivers in Q3 came out together. Everyone is battling for the ideal slot in the train, which is led by Bottas.

Advantage Verstappen, but it all hangs on the second and final runs that are coming up. Gasly remains third ahead of Bottas with Sainz in fifth.

Sainz, Hamilton, Norris, Bottas, Ricciardo, Verstappen and Gasly all out on the track early targeting two runs in this session. Leclerc, Alonso and Stroll remain in the garage for now.

Moments away from Q3, here are the 10 contenders: Sainz, Leclerc, Hamilton, Norris, Bottas, Ricciardo, Verstappen, Gasly, Alonso and Stroll.

That Q2 session... 🤯 Lewis and Valtteri head into Q3 with the fastest laps on the Medium tyre! pic.twitter.com/xG5hlPNKNN

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 27, 2021

Perez is joined out in Q2 by Giovinazzi, Tsunoda, Raikkonen and Russell.

Perez's effort on the mediums has not worked. He has been shuffled back to P11 as plenty of improvements from others arrive, some using the soft tyres. He's out in Q2.

Perez sticks to his guns by going out on the mediums again for Red Bull. He'll need, at the very least, a 1m32.047s to move ahead of Stroll and into the top 10.

TV replays of those Turn 4 moments for Perez and Ricciardo are pretty conclusive. Both went very wide so no arguments there. They may need to switch to the softs to fight for a Q3 place.

Perez and Ricciardo have lost their opening Q2 lap times for both exceeding track limits at Turn 4. That'll put the pressure on them over the closing minutes of this session.

The AlphaTauris have joined the fun now. Plenty of medium tyres on show for the start of Q2: on the Mercs, Red Bulls, McLaren and AlphaTauris. Everyone else on softs.

Sainz was the driver on the bubble at the end of Q1 in P15, but it could have been so much worse, as his Ferrari cut out towards the end of the session. The Spaniard managed to get back to the pits in his car, so the pressure is on for Ferrari to revive his ill car during Q2.

Possible yellow flag investigations aside for now, here are the drivers out in Q1: P16 Ocon, P17 Latifi, P18 Vettel, P19 Schumacher and P20 Mazepin.

Ocon is also out in Q1, having been caught out by those yellow flags when he started his lap. Race control has announced that all lap times set during yellow flags will be investigated after qualifying, so there could be some shake ups to follow.

Disaster for Vettel on his Aston Martin debut, his 1m32.067s means he doesn't improve on his personal best and he drops out of qualifying in P18.