Key events
Lando Norris of McLaren has a chat while eating a pre-race snack: “We’re in a pack which is very close. I made a mistake and paid the price [in qualifying] … it’s very close, it can easily go our way, it can easily go someone else’s way. It should be exciting.”
Chance of a podium? “It’s a tough ask. Some very quick cars … we’ll find out in a minute.”
We sure will.
Max Verstappen runs past. How is he, Brundle asks.
“I’m good. Are you good?”
Then he’s off for the anthems.
“He’s risking a fine there, but he’s clearly very relaxed,” says Brundle after Verstappen jogs away.
George Russell of Mercedes talks to Brundle about the wind, which has changed direction since qualifying: “It’s shifted 90 degrees, it’ll be totally different, it might catch a few people out.”
Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson, who has recently recovered from skin cancer, is up next. Brundle says he’s happy to hear that her cancer prognosis is good. “It’s my first day out,” says Ferguson. “I chose to come the grand prix to support the Crown Prince. Very proud to be here. I love Bahrain.”
Jeremy Clarkson is on the scene. “I’ve spent all of today looking at the lap times from last year,” he tells Brundle.
“What have they all been doing over the winter? The gaps are all the same … McLaren are doing a lot better … it’s a strange thing, to go from one year to the next, and for so little to have changed … people who like the sport will get what I’m saying. It’s a weird year this year, I think.”
Brundle concurs.
“I’ll see you later,” Clarkson tells Brundle.
Patrice Evra on the grid! Wearing a pink suit!
Brundle asks: How are you doing?
“I’m very good. I’m still alive.”
Brundle then compliments Evra on his suit.
“My wife hates it, but I love it! ha ha ha!”
“We are in Bahrain. I love the race.”
And now Neymar turns up … Evra and Neymar embrace … and that’s the end of the interview! Brundle clearly isn’t even going to bother trying to get past Neymar’s security people.
“The grid is unbelievably close,” says the McLaren director, Zak Brown. “A podium is not out of reach, but we need a clean first lap.”
It’s all happening. Diplo drops “Push The Feeling On”, while Brundle reveals he’s just had a new ankle put in, so “won’t be rushing around as fast as I usually do”.
How is Nico Hulkenburg of Haas feeling?
“I feel OK, happy that the season starts. I’m cautiously optimistic … excited to see what happens in the next couple of hours.
“It looks better. The feeling in the car was better than in testing. Hopefully we can fight with the midfield teams … it feels like two different worlds between the frontrunners, and the backrunners all bunched up together.”
Oh, Diplo is DJ-ing now. Looks like he’s got some decks set up on the start-finish straight. That’s nice.
Who’s excited for Martin Brundle’s grid walk?
Neymar was pictured in the pitlane earlier. I heard that Steven Gerrard is also expected to attend, along with another footballer whose name escapes me now.
Contact me with your Bahrain celeb spots.
“It’s a bit of a reset,” says Ted Kravitz. “Everyone starts on zero points.”
He’s done this before.
Lights out is coming up in 35 minutes or so.
Will we see a Max Verstappen procession with Red Bull? Can Leclerc, Russell or someone else have a say from the start?
Some excellent photos have emerged from Bahrain during this meeting: love this one by Clive Mason of Getty Images, of Lewis Hamilton in practice:
George Russell, who is third on the grid for Mercedes, has a quick chat with the telly people:
“If there’s an opportunity on lap one, turn one, I’ll go for it, no doubt … [otherwise] Max might be off into the distance … We have to be realistic.”
“Very happy to be on pole,” Verstappen told the Red Bull website last night. “But it was very tight with a lot of teams, so it was about getting the lap together.
“I think we’ll be better in the race. A lot of teams will be close together and you never know with a safety car, or whatever, anything can happen.”
Sky F1 are running a feature with George Russell, Lando Norris and Alex Albon, who are firm friends having come through the motor racing ranks together.
“I’m 26 now, but I don’t feel 26,” says Russell. “I feel like a young kid.”
I’m shocked to learn that 26 isn’t a young kid. But I know what he means.
“Disappointed to see the F1 teams choose to vote against allowing the Andretti Cadillac bid to join F1,” emails Dan Hamilton from Toronto. “The Andretti family have huge cachet among American race fans and if F1 collectively think they’ve fully tapped the American racing market, they need to think again.
“NASCAR is off to a very strong start this season after having brokered a lucrative new media rights deal. The Indy Car series is healthier than it’s been for years. Andretti involvement in IndyCar is long established as valuable commodity. They have clearly leveraged that via the strong links to Honda’s bid to soon join NASCAR.
“Haas are clearly struggling in F1 and in NASCAR … so why not get the Andretti team into F1 now to maintain or grow American interest rather than have them as rivals in competitive series?”
The Bahrain starting grid
1 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 1min 29.179sec
2 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 1:29.407
3 George Russell (Mercedes) 1:29.485
4 Carlos Sainz Jr (Ferrari) 1:29.507
5 Sergio Perez (Red Bull) 1:29.537
6 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Aston Martin 1:29.542
7 Lando Norris (McLaren) 1:29.614
8 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 1:29.683
9 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) GP 1:29.710
10 Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) 1:30.502
11 Yuki Tsunoda (RB) 1:30.129
12 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) 1:30.200
13 Alexander Albon (Williams) 1:30.221
14 Daniel Ricciardo (RB) 1:30.278
15 Kevin Magnussen (Haas) F1 1:30.529
16 Valtteri Bottas (Kick Sauber) 1:30.756
17 Guanyu Zhou (Kick Sauber) 1:30.757
18 Logan Sargeant (Williams) 1:30.770
19 Esteban Ocon (Alpine) 1:30.793
20 Pierre Gasly (Alpine) 1:30.948
“There is a giant media scrum outside Red Bull,” reports our man in Bahrain, Giles Richards.
“It was like 1997 all over again with the snappers shouting: ‘Geri, Geri, Geri!’”
Ben Sulayem: Horner furore ‘damaging the sport’
The president of Formula One’s governing body has told the Financial Times (£) the controversy around Red Bull team principal Christian Horner is damaging the sport but that the FIA won’t conduct its own inquiry unless it receives a complaint. Before Saturday’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, Mohammed Ben Sulayem said: “It’s damaging the sport. This is damaging on a human level.”
He added that any complaint lodged with its compliance officer would be investigated but it had not received one related to Horner’s situation and would not “jump the gun”. Horner arrived at the paddock holding hands with his wife, Geri Horner.
Lewis Hamilton engaging in a bit of pre-race Bahrain bantz:
Giles Richards
Max Verstappen duly claimed pole for the opening race of the new Formula One season at the Bahrain Grand Prix but the focus of attention under the floodlights and the palm trees remained as it has all week on Verstappen’s team principal, Christian Horner, and his Red Bull team.
With all the turmoil and drama that has swirled round Red Bull, this was a salutary reminder that as a sporting entity they remain spectacularly well-honed for all the chaos that currently orbits their core purpose of going racing.
Whether you’re a Lewis fan, a Max fan, or a someone-else fan, you can email me with your thoughts on today’s race and the season ahead.
Via the Mercedes F1 website, some post-qualifying quotes from Lewis Hamilton: “The car is feeling really great, but I just went a little bit in a direction to help my race pace. I wasn’t feeling as comfortable with that yesterday so that was the focus. I’ve definitely sacrificed more single-lap performance than I hoped too but I hope that pays off tomorrow.”
Toto Wolff echoed those thoughts about the changes to the car that Mercedes hope will benefit them in the race: “Yesterday we looked slightly better than today on our single-lap performance. We intentionally tried to set the car up for tomorrow’s race though, so we hope we’re in more of a sweet spot for the Grand Prix tomorrow.
“The set-up changes we made certainly contributed to the drop in our performance today. At the start of Qualifying, we wondered if we had sacrificed too much for tomorrow but in the end, it wasn’t too bad. P3 is a good place to start but we were still three tenths off pole position.”
Max Verstappen has a chat: “Everyone is looking forward to the race … I’m excited. Normally, our car is good in the race. In qualifying the gaps were very small and I think it will be in the same in the race.
“It feels like the top eight, nine cars are a lot closer. I think it will be a really interesting race.”
Giles Richards
Christian Horner was on Friday night still fighting for his future in Formula One but remained insistent he was going nowhere as the furore around his exoneration, after a complaint about his behaviour from a female Red Bull employee, continued to dominate the agenda at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Preamble
The build-up to the season’s opening grand prix has been unusually dramatic. Mercedes displayed surprisingly fearsome pace in Thursday’s opening practice session, with Lewis Hamilton fastest in the team’s new car design. However, order seemed to be swiftly restored by Red Bull and Max Verstappen in qualifying on Friday, with the world champion securing pole position two-hundredths of a second ahead of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.
George Russell of Mercedes claimed third on the grid, with Hamilton a somewhat disappointing ninth after his flying start to the season curtain-raiser. But Hamilton explained that while some tweaks to his set-up may have sacrificed a bit of single-lap speed for the Mercedes in qualifying, he is hoping they benefit him in today’s race. “It’s amazing for us to have a car that we can fight with,” Hamilton said. “It reignites the fire and the flame within us drivers.”
Today’s grand prix kicks off a season of record-breaking length, with 24 events, scheduled to finish in Abu Dhabi in December. It is also sure to be memorable – emotional, even – being Hamilton’s final campaign with Toto Wolff’s marque before his switch to Ferrari next year.
There has also been a smattering of controversy and drama off-track, of course, with Christian Horner cleared by an independent investigation into controlling behaviour on Wednesday, only for anonymous emails sent on Thursday to reveal alleged messages between the Red Bull boss and the staff member who made the complaint against him. Horner declined to comment yesterday, apart from saying the next step is to “go racing”. So that is what we’ll do.
Lights out: 3pm GMT (6pm local).
