Charles grabs pole for season-opening F1 Bahrain Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc shone brightest under lights tonight and captured the first pole position of Formula 1’s new era at the F1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2022 at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.

Leclerc put Ferrari at the front for Sunday’s 57-lap night race after clocking a best time of one minute 30.558 seconds in Q3 of qualifying.

He beat out reigning drivers’ world champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing by the narrowest of margins. Verstappen’s top lap was 1:30.681.

Carlos Sainz came a close third a close with a 1:30.687 lap to confirm the strong pace of Ferrari in Bahrain, while starting alongside him in the second row will be Sergio Perez, who qualified fourth with a fastest time of 1:30.921 in the second Red Bull car.

Lewis Hamilton (1:31.238) for Mercedes will start fifth and former teammate Valtteri Bottas (1:31.560), now with Alfa Romeo, will be beside him in sixth, while seventh is Kevin Magnussen (1:31.808) for Haas and eighth Fernando Alonso (1:32.195) for Alpine.

Completing the first 10 on the grid are George Russell (1:32.216) who qualified ninth and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly (1:32.338).

Eliminated earlier from Q2 were Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, Haas’s Mick Schumacher, McLaren’s Lando Norris, Williams’s Alexander Albon, and Alfa Romeo rookie Guanyu Zhou.

Eliminated from Q1 were AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, Aston Martin’s Nico Hulkenberg, McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll in the second Aston Martin and Nicholas Latifi of Williams.