Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has claimed his first pole position of the season at the Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton joining him on the front row. Verstappen’s team mate Isack Hadjar was third fastest but will start eighth due to a grid penalty on Saturday, with championship leader Kimi Antonelli in third alongside Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Verstappen was the last driver to win a Grand Prix in Malaysia in 2017, in what was his second career victory, before the race was taken off the calendar after the government said it could not justify the costs.
Nine years and four championships later, the Dutchman showed he was still the man to beat in Sepang with a time of one minute and 35.130 seconds. But to finally get it from where we started the season, pretty incredible,” said Verstappen as he eyes his first win of the season. Hamilton, who also has one victory in Sepang, struggled with tyre degradation in practice sessions but the veteran Briton snatched second from Hadjar in the dying stages of the final qualifying session.
But that’s made it a massive challenge for the tyres, for the car, for the mechanics in the garage,” Hamilton said. It was really, really hard to find a good balance. We made one last change going into qualifying and I think we hit the sweet spot.” Hadjar had exceeded his seasonal allowance for engines, which resulted in a five-place grid penalty.
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