Max Verstappen achieved pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Formula 1 on Friday. In fact, the Q3 session was the only one he led in Sakhir so far, but it was enough to snatch the top position at the start by a clear margin – beating Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) by 0.206s.
The Red Bull driver mentioned to the official championship website that there were consistent improvements: ‘I think today we made good improvements and then between FP3 and qualifying it also seemed a bit better. Then, step by step, I think we improved the car a little, even during qualifying following the track and also the wind – which has been quite strong in recent days’.
The result was surprising for Verstappen, as he admitted: ‘I was a bit surprised in Q3 because if you look at the lap times in Q2, Charles probably had the fastest one. This shows that it’s very close for tomorrow as well. Nevertheless, I’m very confident that we can have a strong race car tomorrow’.
Finally, the three-time world champion spoke about the apparent balance: ‘It’s good to see. When going into qualifying, no one really knew where we would be among ourselves and that’s great for F1’.
