Bahrain GP qualifying: Oscar Piastri takes pole ahead of George Russell

SAKHIR, Bahrain – Oscar Piastri claimed a tighter-than-expected pole position for McLaren ahead of George Russell’s Mercedes.

Championship leader Lando Norris could only manage sixth position, handing his teammate a huge advantage in a season increasingly looking like a straight fight between the McLaren drivers.

McLaren had looked dominant across practice and in the first two sessions of qualifying, only for the field to close up on the papaya cars at the end of Q3.

Piastri’s final benchmark was just 0.1 seconds ahead of Mercedes driver George Russell with a laptime of 1:29.841, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finished third.

Piastri claimed the second pole position of his career, and McLaren’s first at Bahrain.

Norris appeared to fluff his final run in Q3 and finished behind Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who will line up fourth, and star of the session Pierre Gasly, who managed fifth for Alpine.

Paddock consensus is still that McLaren are a step ahead in race trim and with Bahrain a better circuit for overtaking Norris should fancy his chances at moving up the order on Sunday, but he has left himself with a lot of work to do.

Behind Norris was Japanese Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen, who had to settle for seventh for Red Bull — although the team will be buoyed that Yuki Tsunoda progressed through to Q3 and managed 10th place.

Lewis Hamilton had his first run in Q3 deleted for track limits and had to settle for ninth on the grid.

Haas driver Esteban Ocon triggered a red flag when he crashed out of Q3 coming out of Turn 3, the opposite side of the road to where former Haas driver Romain Grosjean had his infamous fireball crash in 2020.

Ocon was unhurt in the crash, which will have given Haas a big repair job ahead of Sunday evening’s race.

Source: espn.com