Bahrain GP: Pirelli Qualifying Review

The fastest-ever lap of the Bahrain International Circuit was set tonight thanks to Valtteri Bottas’ pole time of 1m28.769s for Mercedes on the supersoft tyre. Conditions remained warm, with track temperatures of 37 degrees centigrade for the evening qualifying session. Bottas was one of three drivers, together with Hamilton and Vettel, to save a set of supersoft tyres by using only one set of soft tyres in Q1.

MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF CAR RACING
“Today we saw the fastest-ever lap of Bahrain in qualifying, using the supersoft tyre. Depending on track conditions tomorrow, drivers might opt for a one-stop or a two-stop strategy. There’s still enough of a time difference between the soft and the supersoft tyre to make some variations in strategy possible. As the teams seem very closely matched in terms of race pace, this could well make the difference.”

HOW THE TYRES BEHAVED TODAY
MEDIUM - Not used in qualifying and unlikely to be seen in the race tomorrow.
SOFT - Hamilton, Bottas and Vettel used just one set of soft in Q1.
SUPERSOFT -The predominant qualifying tyre, more than a second faster than the soft.