Sebastian Vettel won the qualifying battle in Bahrain with a blistering 1:54.101 as all top ten drivers opted for the softer rubber.
With the two Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa having the early advantage in Q3 it looked as if it may be an all-red front row as the McLarens lacked the pace needed to challenge at the front.
However, Vettel came out for his one shot at pole position and blitzed Alonso's time by almost a full second. Massa edged out Alosno while Hamilton had to settle for fourth, a full second down on Vettel. Nico Rosberg was the pick of the Mercedes drivers, taking fifth place ahead of Mark Webber, Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button.
Meanwhile, F1's newcomers sorely lacked pace and made up the very bottom of the grid with Virgin and Lotus mixing it up while Hispania Racing were stone last, ten seconds off the pace in Q1.
Qualifying 1
The sun was shining down on the Sakhir circuit with an ambient of 34C and 47C on the track as Lucas DiGrassi started off the 2010 season. The junior driver at the Virgin team set the clocks at 2:02.131 on his first run, a time that Hispania Racing would not approach for the whole session.
Bruno Senna had early morning practice in his Hispania car but Karun Chandhok had to watch from the sidelines. Eventually his Karun-badged car trundled out and put in laps of 2:21, 2:08, 2:05, 2:04, in a very public shakedown test. Bruno Senna managed to get his HRT car to 2:03 and neither broke down on track.
Q1 with seven cars going out has become more of a test session for Q2 this year with the six new cars likely to fill the bottom six spaces and only one of the established teams' cars in danger. So it's largely a question of 'pass the parcel' or who's going to get a red face when the chequered flag drops.
Jarno Trulli (Lotus) had got the better of former Toyota team-mate Timo Glock (Virgin) for much of the session, but right at the end Glock nicked inside with a 1:59.728. The experience of losing a wheel in practice clearly not affecting his driving. Glock was still over two and half seconds slower than the more established teams.
As for the rest of the runners, it was the ususal suspects of Ferrari and Red Bull at the front with McLaren and Mercedes just a little way back. The Force India team reinforced their late 2009 form with quick laps from Sutil and reasonable laps from Liuzzi. At the end of the session the top ten runners were:
1.Alonso, 2.Vettel, 3.Sutil, 4.Webber, 5.Massa, 6.Hamilton, 7.Rosberg, 8.Kubica, 9.|Schumacher, 10.Liuzzi
Already Rosberg looked to have a significant edge on Schumacher and Hamilton the same on Button, while Robert Kubica's performance in the Renault showed that he would also be a serious contender.
As for the fall-guy who would not make it into Q2, going into the final few minutes it was Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi in the P.18 danger slot. He hauled himself up to P.15 leaving team-mate Pedro de la Rosa there before de la Rosa jumped to P.15, relegating Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari to P.18 and the fate of the dunce's class.
So out went: 18.Alguersuari, 19.Glock, 20.Trulli, 21.Kovalainen, 22.Di Grassi, 23.Senna, 24.Chandhok.
Qualifying 2
Sebastian Vettel was out early on green-walled supersoft tyres to set a benchmark P1 time of 1:54.035. Team-mate Mark Webber grabbed P2, Alonso then took P2, Massa slotted into P4, Hamilton could only manage P5 and then Rosberg took P5 off him.
Such is the length of the lap at Bahrain that the top six didn't look threatened by the slower runners. With three minutes left the danger positions were:
7.Kubica, 8.Sutil, 9.Schumacher, 10.Barrichello, 11.Button, 12.Liuzzi, 13.Hulkenberg, 14. de la Rosa, 15.Kobayashi, 16.Petrov, 17. Buemi.
Surprisingly, everyone came out to try and better their lap time. Despite setting the equal slowest first sector time, Michael Schumacher hung on to P9 and Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello swapped places, the Englishman demoting his former Brawn team-mate to P11.
Vettel managed to break the 1:54 mark with a lap of 1:53.883 edging Fernando Alonso into P2 again. Star of the session, though, was Robert Kubica who claimed P7 in his Renault and he was a massive 1.6 seconds up on his team-mate.
Out went:
11.Barrichello, 12.Liuzzi, 13.Hulkenberg, 14. de la Rosa, 15.Buemi, 16.Kobayashi, 17.Petrov
Qualifying 3
Unlike previous Q3s, six of the top ten drivers elected to do just a single fast lap. The Ferraris and McLarens opted for two runs. Massa calimed provisional pole before getting edge out by Alonso, while Lewis Hamilton was a long way off the pace in P3 and Jenson Button was so slow he aborted the lap.
So with only 49 seconds of the session left to run only three drivers had set a time. With a lap time of nearly two minutes, had there been a red flag in the last four minutes of the session then sorting out the grid for Sunday would have been an interesting proposition.
As they came across the line Vettel grabbed P1, Webber was much slower in P4, Massa jumped to P2, Hamilton (given his earlier form) grabbed a remarkable P4. Alonso made an error and could only manage P3, while Button made a mistake and still took P7 which was snatched back by Michael Schumacher leaving the World Champion in P8. Rosberg had taken P5 with Kubica in P9 and Sutil in P10.
Though Button's mistake had probably only robbed him of P7, Webber should have been on the front row with his team-mate and Alonso's time was half a second slower than his Q2 lap.
So important personal victories for Vettel, Massa, Rosberg and Hamilton. With all cars starting on the supersoft option tyre, it will be a case of a short sprint in tomorrow's race before getting a set of the harder primes to go the distance. Vettel may be handily placed in P1, but Red Bull may have some issues with cooling tomorrow. Bahrain has always been known as a "Ferrari track" and the Maranello cars are beautifully positioned for a bounce-back from a lacklustre 2009.
FH
Times
1 S. Vettel Red Bull 1:54.101
2 F. Massa Ferrari 1:54.242
3 F. Alonso Ferrari 1:54.608
4 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:55.217
5 N. Rosberg Mercedes Grand Prix 1:55.241
6 M. Webber Red Bull 1:55.284
7 M. Schumacher Mercedes Grand Prix 1:55.524
8 J. Button McLaren 1:55.672
9 R. Kubica Renault 1:55.885
10 A. Sutil Force India F1 1:56.309
11 R. Barrichello Williams 1:55.330
12 V. Liuzzi Force India F1 1:55.653
13 N. Hulkenberg Williams 1:55.857
14 P. de la Rosa Sauber 1:56.237
15 S. Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:56.265
16 K. Kobayashi Sauber 1:56.270
17 V. Petrov Renault 1:56.619
18 J. Alguersuari Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:57.071
19 T. Glock Virgin Racing 1:59.728
20 J. Trulli Lotus F1 1:59.852
21 H. Kovalainen Lotus F1 2:00.313
22 L. Di Grassi Virgin Racing 2:00.587
23 B. Senna HRT F1 Team 2:03.240
