Mercedes F1 locked out the front row during qualifying at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton led the way and secured his 98th pole position ahead of Sunday’s race. It was business as usual for team Mercedes F1 who looked untouchable from Practice 1 all the way to Q3. Hamilton rubber-stamped his primacy over Bottas with a near 3-tenths of a second advantage. Max Verstappen performed admirably as usual and narrowly missed out unseating Bottas by 1-tenth. From 4th to 20th was really the best of the rest. 

Under pressure, Alex Albon secured a much-needed 4th on the grid, but he was 6-tenths off his teammate’s pace. Renault formed an orderly queue behind Albon with 6th and 7th for Ocon and Ricciardo respectively and will be a bee in Albon’s bonnet for race day. Gasley, Norris, and Kvyat were 8th, 9th and 10th. Indeed from 4th position to 10th looks evenly matched. 

But it was business as usual from the Hamilton, Bottas, and Mercedes F1 demonstration show. As the end of the season draws near, with both the drivers and constructors championships under their belt, Mercedes is showing no signs of backing down from the winning mentality. But the same rule still applies, qualifying is a show, but it’s race day where the points are won or lost.

Only reliability issues will prevent either Hamilton or Bottas from winning, for the rest it’s the cold hard reality of picking up the scraps.

2020 Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying Results:

Q1 107% time – 1:34.527