Bahrain GP Saturday: Teams and Drivers report from Sakhir

Piastri prevailed after an interesting qualifying as George Russell emerged as his main challenger, the Briton posting the second-fastest time as Charles Leclerc was third fastest.

It was a tough qualifying for Max Verstappen who was seventh and while Yuki Tsunoda made Q3, he was only tenth behind Lewis Hamilton, a disappointing ninth in the other Ferrari.

It was a great qualifying for Pierre Gasly who was fifth while Carlos Sainz made Q3 for Williams.

Here is what the teams had to say after qualifying for the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Pierre Gasly: "That was a very good Qualifying and we definitely needed that. I'm very happy for the entire team with that result and performance. I must say, I was struggling a little bit at the start of the session. I was not feeling that comfortable in Q1 with low grip and a lot of sliding. We managed to unlock the potential from the tyres from Q2 onwards and really extracted more and more from them as the session went on. In the end, Q3, and that last lap, when I crossed the line, I knew it was a special one. Even so, to be fifth and so close to the top three and even pole position is a nice surprise. Great work all round by the whole team and now we must focus on tomorrow. We have some fast cars behind us, we will try to fight them, but we know our goal is to cross the line inside the points."

Jack Doohan: "I have mixed emotions after that session even if the majority of the evening was largely very positive. We will start tomorrow's race in our best starting position of the year on my side. It was all coming together nicely throughout Q1 and most of Q2. I think I missed the window on tyre optimisation on the last run – a little too fast on my warm-up – over preparing them and we probably did not maximise the full potential on that last push lap. Still, plenty of positives there and things to understand for future. Tomorrow will be a long race, with high tyre degradation quite likely. Starting in eleventh means we are knocking on the door of the points so we will see what we can do on strategy and aim to convert today into a top ten finish in the race."

Dave Greenwood, Racing Director: "Overall it's a great result in Qualifying for the team, which is a nice reward and testament to all the hard work behind the scenes in recent weeks at Enstone and Viry. As usual at this race, we go through extreme conditions across Practice sessions in the build up to Qualifying. As a result, we have to work hard to keep the car balanced and the tyres performing at their optimum grip, but I am happy to say as a team we have done a very good job on this. Pierre was strong in all sessions in Qualifying and hooked up the lap in Q3 to line-up fifth for the Grand Prix tomorrow. Jack was matching Pierre all the way and showed good speed also, but narrowly missed out on a spot in Q3. We're in a good position for Sunday, but it will be a long and tricky race and we will look to convert strong starting positions into points for the team tomorrow. When you compare where the team was in Bahrain last year in P19 and P20 to today, it's been a great effort by the whole team. But we know the points are handed out tomorrow and we'll work hard to carry the positive momentum into the race tomorrow."

Carlos Sainz: "It seems like we made a step in the right direction, but we need to keep our heads down and carry on trying different things. I feel I still have margin for improvement, and I want to be higher than P8! Having said that, I'm happy with today and I definitely felt more in control, knowing where to push, where there is potential lap time, and staying disciplined with my driving. I'm confident in what we are doing, the speed is there, and I have a great team around me, so I just need to stick to my plan and continue taking the right steps, starting with the race tomorrow and trying to score some points!"

Alex Albon: "It was messy today. We spent about three minutes waiting for all the other cars to go past us, stuck in the pit exit traffic jam, which equates to about 25-30 degrees of tyre temperature lost. When that happens, you end up going into Turn 1 with no grip. I had to overtake three cars on my outlap to make the flag. That's just the way it is, unfortunately. Normally we are very good at getting out there, but today we slipped up. As for tomorrow, we have some of the strongest race pace in the midfield and at least you can overtake on this track! It's going to be tricky to score points, but it is possible and I will give it everything to recover from what happened today."

James Vowles, Team Principal: "It's great to see Carlos up into Q3. He's progressing every race weekend and there's more to come from him.

"In terms of Alex, it was a disappointing session. As a team, we didn't execute leaving the garage as cleanly as we did on Carlos' side, and it resulted in Alex being at the back of the queue, unable to do the outlap he wanted. He has the pace, we've seen it every race weekend so far this year, and he is able to get the car into Q3. I have no doubt that would have been the same today.

"On the positive side, he is very quick, and it's a track where we can overtake and make a difference strategically. I'm looking forward to working with him on the race tomorrow in order to get both cars up into the points."

Isack Hadjar: "It wasn't a great Qualifying for us, reaching Q3 was the goal today. We got really close and I feel like we could have gotten through, but I didn't do a good enough lap. I had a tricky session out there and after the wind changed direction, I felt like the balance of the car went the wrong way and therefore struggled with it. I think I had a strong start in my last attempt and thought that was enough, but unfortunately, I was a bit too conservative towards the end of that lap. Tomorrow is going to be interesting, as it will be a two-stop race due to the high tyre degradation. A lot will happen, and if the pace is there, we can fight to get points."

Liam Lawson: "Q1 was okay up until I had a wheel spin out of the corner and opened DRS, which closed again on the way to turn 11. Unsure exactly what happened; if it was something I did, I will definitely learn from it as it's cost me a lot today, which is pretty frustrating. The car has been quick this weekend, for us it was just piecing it together in Quali. I think we had it in a pretty good window and the speed was there, it's just a shame we had this issue. For tomorrow, it's positive, we should be able to move forward. When you're buried, it's not ideal for tyres so it's going to be quite tough, but I feel like we have the speed. The long run looks reasonably competitive, but everyone's doing different things with tyres so let's see tomorrow."

Tim Goss, Chief Technical Officer: "We came into Qualifying with a strong performance from FP2 and FP3. Both drivers put in some good laps in the cooler conditions in FP2, but felt we had a little more to come from car balance and so small adjustments were made over night. The vast swing in track temperature and its effects of tyre grip and car balance is quite challenging for the engineers, and FP3 only gave limited feedback on our expectations for Qualifying. In Quali the balance was never perfect, affecting both our drivers (and others) from extracting everything available. With such a tight field it is essential to get everything right. Unfortunately, Liam had a DRS issue in Q2. In the tricky conditions, Liam picked up a little wheelspin on exit from turn 10, resulting in a small throttle lift to keep the car under control causing DRS to automatically close which caused him to loose vital speed on the straight, and cost the place in Q2. Isack struggled slightly with the car balance, missing Q3 by a small margin. A session that could have been better, but we have confidence the car can compete, and we will do everything to demonstrate that tomorrow."

Fernando Alonso: "We maximised our Qualifying tonight with P13 on the grid for tomorrow's race. For Q1 we used three sets of Softs and made it through. We were then quite limited with our options for Q2, and we didn't have any new sets of Soft tyres left. We haven't had the pace all weekend, so I think it could be a challenging race for us tomorrow. We will keep fighting and hopefully be close to the points."

Lando Stroll: "The set-up didn't feel quite right today, the ride height was way too high as it turned out, so it was difficult to turn the car around the corners. We always knew coming to Bahrain this wasn't going to be an easy weekend for us, so now we need to do some work and see if there's anything we can change ahead of tomorrow."

Mike Krack, Chief Trackside Officer: "We got things completely wrong with Lance's car today. The ride height set-up was incorrect, which created high levels of understeer, and cost him significant lap time and a chance to qualify higher up the grid. Fernando put in a solid performance on a set of Used Softs and will start from P13. We need to learn and reflect on this session and come back stronger tomorrow."

Ollie Bearman: "It was just a messy lap; I've been struggling a lot all weekend with front-locking and that was the case again in qualifying. It's really hard to gain confidence with those types of issues and unfortunately I didn't put a good lap on the board. It's strange because I felt good in FP2 despite the issues, but I think as I've tried to extract more performance out of the car, I've been limited more and more. When you don't have confidence in a car like this, you can't extract the lap time, so it's annoying, but we'll see what we can do tomorrow."

Esteban Ocon: "I feel really sorry for the team, I messed up today. I think we were on for a decent qualifying but I made a mistake – that I don't usually do in quali, and I pushed too hard at Turn 2 so got on the curb, bottomed out and lost it at that corner. I'm disappointed with my performance today, and now we have to rebuild the car. I know the team is going to do an amazing job and tomorrow we'll go racing."

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "It was a very disappointing qualifying; we didn't maximize our performance. On Ollie's side, in hindsight we should've done three runs in Q1 because he's been having problems with braking, so he didn't have the confidence to put the car on the limit straight away. That meant he left a lot to do on his second timed lap in Q1, and then he had a front lock-up going into Turn 8, so Ollie should've made it into Q2 easily as he has the pace. On Esteban's side, in Q1 he did a very good job comfortably making it into Q2. On his out lap in Q2, it was a simple mistake. In terms of his input, it wasn't a massive difference compared to what he was doing previously, but everything is on the limit and unfortunately that happened. It's a shame as we definitely had the speed to be in Q3, but at least at this circuit you can overtake – so we'll do our best to overtake as many cars as possible tomorrow."

Nico Hulkenberg: “Looking at our performance on track, before the call by the stewards, I think we had made the best of today’s conditions, and therefore I’m quite happy with the performance we put in. Going into qualifying, we knew our day could be tricky, because we had a less-than-ideal FP2 yesterday and our FP3 was cut short with a technical issue this morning. The conditions, with a strong breeze and changing grip levels, made the car challenging to drive at the limit: still, we had extracted the most out of the car, so it’s a pity to start from P16 after the Q2 efforts were deleted. It’ll be a big challenge to get into the fight for the points: we will need a good start and a good strategy, of course, and I have full confidence in everyone in the team that we’ll give it our best shot."

Gabriel Bortoleto: "It's been a rather difficult qualifying for us today. The conditions changed quite a lot with the wind, and unfortunately, our car is very sensitive to these variables. I felt the lap I delivered was a good one, but we were lacking some grip, and ultimately, we haven't been able to progress past Q1. After a promising Friday, I was hoping to reach Q2 today, so it’s disappointing. Looking ahead to tomorrow, we know it will be a challenging race, but we’ll give everything we have. We’ll stay focused and try to get in the mix to move further up on the grid, maximising any opportunities that come our way."

Jonathan Wheatley, Team Principal: "I'm disappointed with the outcome of qualifying today. Unfortunately, Nico's fastest lap in Q1 [that had originally put him into Q2] was deleted after a very late review, meaning he'll start tomorrow's race from P16. That said, he did an incredible job on two sets of older tyres in Q2, which would have put him in P13. As for Gabriel, the balance of the car proved to be more difficult than expected, meaning he couldn’t extract a better lap time. So, while the outcome isn't what we wanted, we'll regroup overnight, learn from today, and focus on the race tomorrow."