Piastri crushes Norris and dominates the F1 grid ahead of Qualifying

Oscar Piastri dominated FP3 ahead of Qualifying for the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix by almost 7 tenths to his McLaren teammate, Lando Norris in P2, and 8 tenths to Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc in P3.

As it happened

The first 20 minutes went down without much action. Since the conditions of the sessions rendered it quite unrepresentative compared to the conditions that qualifying and the race would take place in, teams and drivers took their time getting out of the garage.

At the 20 minute mark, it was Lewis Hamilton leading teammate Leclerc by 0.057s.

Lando Norris then tumbled the Ferrari drivers’ times down by a full second with a 1:33.796. Max Verstappen was coming to put in a very competitive lap but at turn 11 he understeered heavily and couldn’t make the corner. “Yeah, that’s fucking terrible,” was the Dutchman’s assessment.

Fernando Alonso then put in a 1:34.2, good enough for P2. Oscar Piastri, Norris’ McLaren teammate, then knocked his teammate down from P1 by nearly half a second. Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson snuck into the top 10, and Pierre Gasly and Jack Doohan both made it into the top 8.

At the halfway mark the Virtual Safety car was deployed. Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber stalled coming out of turn 4. The German then parked his car on a marshal post just off turn 8, which allowed his car to be quickly extricated from the track, allowing the session to be resumed with hardly any time lost.

After some set up changes, Verstappen emerged from the pitlane to take over P2 from Norris on a set of used softs with a 1:33.558, 0:234 off of Piastri’s leading time.

With 40 minutes down, as Leclerc came into the final corner, a bizarre incident took place: the left-hand side mirror on th #16 SF-25 came flying right off, something the Monegasque reported and Ferrari noted, of course.

Piastri crushes everyone's hopes

Despite severe understeer, Fernando Alonso put his Aston Martin in P4, only to be demoted immediatly by Alexander Albon who put in a strong lap in his FW47.

Verstappen took P1 but momentarily as well, as Gasly put his Alpine on top by 0.053s. But behind, Piastri was setting the timesheets on fire as he brought thw times down by 1.328s with a 1:31.646.

Hadjar put his VCARB02 in P3 behind Gasly and ahead of Verstappen. Mercedes rookie, Andrea Kimi Antonelli despite wringing the neck out of his W16, was 1.2s off the blistering pace set by the Australian McLaren driver.

Russell tooke over from P2, then it was Leclerc taking the mantle behind Piastri, but ultimately it was Norris who followed his teammate by nearly 7 tenths.