Q1
F. Massa 1:31.373 (7th)
L. Stroll 1:31.748 (12th)
Quickest time: L. Hamilton 1:30.814
Q2
F. Massa 1:30.677 (8th)
L. Stroll 1:31.168 (12th)
Quickest time: L. Hamilton 1:29.535
Q3
F. Massa 1:30.074 (8th)
L.Stroll –
Quickest time: V. Bottas 1:28.769
Qualifying Notes
– Felipe Massa qualified eighth and Lance Stroll 12th for the Bahrain Grand Prix
– Felipe made it comfortably through to Q2 with his first lap on the supersofts. Lance was in P16 but managed to put in a solid lap to jump up to P12 and progress to Q2
– In Q2 Lance was briefly in P10, and through to Q3, but as others took the chequered flag and improved he dropped to P12, where he will start the race tomorrow
– Felipe set one time on the supersofts in Q2, which was enough to take him comfortably through to the final part of qualifying
– In Q3 Felipe set a 1:30.074 on a new set of supersofts which was good enough for P8
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: Overall I’m quite pleased. We had a trouble free session and Felipe did a good lap at the end for P8. I think Lance should be very happy with his qualifying because it’s a difficult circuit with varying conditions between sessions and it’s quite tricky on tyres, so I think he’s done a really good job in only his third Formula One qualifying session. It also puts him in a good position to start the race, with a free tyre choice and new sets available. Equally for Felipe we have some good opportunities for the race and we look forward to seeing what we can do tomorrow. I also want to say a massive congratulations to Valtteri, who started his Formula One journey at Williams back in 2010, and who did a great job achieving his first pole position today.
Felipe Massa: I’m happy with our qualifying session and the job that we did. Maybe the perfect position would have been seventh as we lost a little bit of time at the end there. But, I’m really looking forward to the race tomorrow. I’m happy with the performance of the car across the whole weekend, not only on new tyres but also the old tyres. Tomorrow is another day and we need to concentrate on getting everything right and try to get a better position tomorrow.
Lance Stroll: Looking at the times it’s really close, so I’m happy. I wouldn’t say we have been struggling, but it has been difficult for us this weekend just getting the tyres in the window for a qualifying lap and suffering with low grip here. It was not easy in qualifying on that first run, but once I knew where the grip was and how the car was I was able to deliver it on that second lap, but unfortunately that only gave us one set for Q2. However, I think it was a good effort with the one set we had. P12 is not too bad. It’s obviously not what we needed to get into Q3, but I am pleased with the day and looking forward to tomorrow.
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