SAKHIR, Bahrain — A couple of days ago, Max Verstappen winning the opening race of the Formula One season seemed like sport’s surest bet. Many went further, believing Red Bull’s performance in preseason testing seemed strong enough to write off the season entirely and name Verstappen a four-time world champion.
The opening three practice sessions of the new season combined with Friday’s qualifying session painted a much closer competitive picture between Red Bull and its closest rivals, though. Although it’s true that Verstappen took his 33rd career pole position by more than 0.2 seconds on Friday, at no point during the hour session did the result seem like a foregone conclusion.
The top six drivers were split by less than 0.4s, with five teams featuring in the top eight. Every one of them seemed to have an explanation for why a tenth of a second slipped away here or there, with the end result much closer than any of them expected.
Charles Leclerc, who secured second place on the grid, actually set the fastest time of the evening when he clocked a 1:29.165 in Q2 — 0.014s faster than the time that eventually secured Verstappen pole position in Q3. Leclerc believes a repeat would have been possible in Q3 had Ferrari managed their use of soft tyres throughout the session differently and given him two shots on fresh tyres in Q3 rather than one.
“I think it’s closer than what it looks on the time sheets, but this is a good thing,” Leclerc said. “We were expecting Red Bull to have a bit more margin than what there was today, so we are a bit closer than what we thought.
“But the biggest question mark is obviously tomorrow in the race. I’m pretty sure they have a bit more margin than what we’ve seen today. But again, let’s wait and see.”
Leclerc’s refusal to get too excited is prudent. Last season he took three of the last five pole positions of the year only for Verstappen to take victory in all of the final five races. Throughout last year, Red Bull’s ability to look after its tyres in race conditions allowed its drivers, specifically Verstappen, to maintain a faster pace while running on heavy fuel than its rivals.
As close as qualifying looked on Friday, the race (Saturday, 9:55 a.m. ET; stream live on ESPN) could still be a very different story. Thursday’s practice saw Mercedes emerge as the fastest car…
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