Then comes Webber, who actually only loses two places courtesy of Hamilton,
followed by Kimi Raikkonen in his Lotus
who moves from ninth to eighth. Alongside Hamilton on the fifth row will be
former team-mate Jenson
Button in his McLaren.
In 11th and 12th, after dropping out in Q2 will be Romain Grosjean in his
Lotus and McLaren’s Sergio Perez, beaten by team-mates Raikkonen and Button
respectively for the fourth straight race.
Toro
Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo, who a week ago in China qualified seventh,
will start 13th tomorrow, with team-mate Vergne 16th. Sandwiched in between
the pair are Sauber’s
Nico Hulkenberg and the Williams
of Valtteri Bottas.
In a remarkable twist at the end of the opening 20-minute Q1 session, Pastor
Maldonado dropped out after setting the same time as Williams team-mate
Bottas. Posting a lap of 1min 34.125sec, as the Venezuelan’s time came after
that of the Finn, it left Maldonado kicking his heels while Bottas took part
in Q2.
Maldonado will start 17th ahead of Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez, with the
Mexican out-qualified by Hulkenberg for the fourth consecutive race, and
failing to make it into Q2 for the third time.
With a five-place grid penalty to serve for the race after running into the
back of Sutil in Shanghai, Gutierrez will start at the back of the grid.
Caterham and Marussia share the bottom four places, with Charles Pic a
season’s best of 19th since switching from the latter to the former for this
season.
Either side of Caterham’s Giedo van der Garde are Marussia duo Jules Bianchi
and Max Chilton, with the 21-year-old Briton setting the slowest time in
qualifying for the first time this year.
Full qualifying standings for the Bahrain Grand Prix:
1 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP 1min 32.330secs
2 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1:32.584
3 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:32.667
4 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mercedes GP 1:32.762
5 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:33.078
6 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:33.207
7 Paul di Resta (Gbr) Force India 1:33.235
8 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 1:33.246
9 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus F1 Team 1:33.327
10 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 1:33.702
11 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Lotus F1 Team 1:33.762
12 Sergio Perez (Mex) McLaren 1:33.914
13 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:33.974
14 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Sauber-Ferrari 1:33.976
15 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Williams 1:34.105
16 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:34.284
17 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Williams 1:34.425
18 Esteban Gutierrez (Mex) Sauber-Ferrari 1:34.730
19 Charles Pic (Fra) Caterham 1:35.283
20 Jules Bianchi (Fra) Marussia 1:36.178
21 Giedo van der Garde (Ned) Caterham 1:36.304
22 Max Chilton (Gbr) Marussia 1:36.476
(Edited by Ben Bloom)