Max Verstappen has sent a statement, dominating qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix to claim his first pole position of the season.
Verstappen looked like the man to beat from the very start on Saturday and ended up topping all three qualifying sessions, finishing three tenths clear of second-placed Lewis Hamilton — who he will renew his 2021 rivalry with on the front row on Sunday.
It marked Verstappen’s first pole since the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last season.
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“It’s fantastic,” he said post-qualifying.
“We have been trying many grands prix to get pole. Sometimes a bit closer than others but to finally get it, from where we started the season, pretty incredible.
“I’m happy with today and, for sure, I’m going to try and win tomorrow. When you start first, that’s the target.”
Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar qualified third, however, he will drop down to eighth with a grid penalty after taking his seventh internal combustion engine of the campaign.
That means Australian Oscar Piastri will move up into sixth, just behind Land Norris after another disappointing qualifying.
Rounding out the top five was Kimi Antonelli in third and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in fifth, with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto making up the remainder of the top 10 while George Russell will be disappointed with P7 after his win at Baku.
The lack of pace from Russell left Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff perplexed, telling Sky Sports it was “very difficult to understand”.
“We have been a little bit caught out on Friday with some car behaviour that we didn’t see all year, but then you can say it’s very hot and the tarmac is the different to all the (other) tracks,” he said.
“It looked really good this morning. We seemed to have, at least with Kimi, made a step in understanding.
“And then, qualifying was a little bit back to what we saw before, just no performance.”
It was Red Bull setting the tone early in Q3, with Verstappen leading the way 0.38s ahead of Hadjar and 0.495s quicker than third-placed Hamilton.
At that point it looked like the pace of Verstappen would be hard to beat and that ended up being a sign of things to come, with Hamilton also impressing throughout all three sessions as he sealed his first front-row start since Barcelona.
Antonelli, meanwhile, did well to recover for third place after an error in Q2.
There was some pressure on the championship leader after he had a lap time deleted for exceeding track limits at turn six.
Antonelli had finished fourth fastest but had to quickly mentally regroup and get back on the track, which he had all to himself and hardly looked bothered as he safely made it through to Q3.
The issue, however, was that Antonelli needed to use another set of soft tyres to record that time and it left him “a bit compromised” according to Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord.
“Not good, because Q2 you know you’re going to get through,” added Woolf.
“You lose a set in a qualifying that’s so tight, where we are on the back foot. That’s not good.”
In the end, Antonelli went for his one shot at a flying lap with around six minutes to go in the session and was third-fastest.
Elsewhere, both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll made it into Q2 for the first time this season for a rare bright spot in what has otherwise been a dismal 2026 season.
It came at the expense of Nico Hulkenberg, with the Audi driver being the biggest surprise casualty to be eliminated in Q1.
RESULTS
1 Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing) 1m35.130s
2 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +0.298s
3 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull Racing) +0.428s*
4 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +0.501s
5 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.536s
6 Lando Norris (McLaren) +0.627s
7 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +0.632s
8 George Russell (Mercedes) +0.741s
9 Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +2.080s
10 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) +2.543s
***
11 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +0.209s to Q3
12 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) +0.406s
13 Carlos Sainz (Williams) +0.713s
14 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) +0.752s
15 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +11.607s*
16 Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) +17.995s*
***
17 Nico Hulkenberg (Audi) +0.087s to Q2
18 Oliver Bearman (Haas) +0.097s
19 Esteban Ocon (Haas) +0.350s
20 Alexander Albon (Williams) +0.717s
21 Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac) +0.728s
22 Sergio Perez (Cadillac) +1.050s
Hadjar, Colapinto and Lindblad will serve grid penalties
Originally published as F1 stars renew epic rivalry as year-long wait ends in Bahrain GP qualifying