2013 Bahrain Grand Prix grid

2013 Bahrain Grand Prix

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Row 11. Nico Rosberg 1’32.33
Mercedes
2. Sebastian Vettel 1’32.584
Red Bull
Row 23. Fernando Alonso 1’32.667
Ferrari
4. Felipe Massa 1’33.207
Ferrari
Row 35. Paul di Resta 1’33.235
Force India
6. Adrian Sutil 1’33.246
Force India
Row 47. Mark Webber* 1’33.078
Red Bull
8. Kimi Raikkonen 1’33.327
Lotus
Row 59. Lewis Hamilton** 1’32.762
Mercedes
10. Jenson Button No time
McLaren
Row 611. Romain Grosjean 1’33.762
Lotus
12. Sergio Perez 1’33.914
McLaren
Row 713. Daniel Ricciardo 1’33.974
Toro Rosso
14. Nico Hulkenberg 1’33.976
Sauber
Row 815. Valtteri Bottas 1’34.105
Williams
16. Jean-Eric Vergne 1’34.284
Toro Rosso
Row 917. Pastor Maldonado 1’34.425
Williams
18. Charles Pic 1’35.283
Caterham
Row 1019. Jules Bianchi 1’36.178
Marussia
20. Giedo van der Garde 1’36.304
Caterham
Row 1121. Max Chilton 1’36.476
Marussia
22. Esteban Gutierrez*** 1’34.73
Sauber

*Three-place penalty for colliding with Jean-Eric Vergne
**Five-place penalty for gearbox change
***Five-place penalty for colliding with Adrian Sutil

2013 Bahrain Grand Prix

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Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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73 comments on “2013 Bahrain Grand Prix grid”

  1. Great lap from Rosberg! Whether he’ll be able to hold it in the race I’m not so sure though, considering how Hamilton fell back initially last week…

    1. It’s going to be tough. He’d do well to hold of Vettel on the first corner, but even if he manages to do that he’s going to be totally at the mercy of both Vettel and the Ferrari’s as soon as he gets anywhere near the DRS zone. I hope he proves me wrong!

      1. I do see Vettel leading into turn one yea, but honestly with the starting position (annoyingly from my perspective) I think this is Alonso’s race to lose.

        1. A shame for Raikkonen – 1.5 tenths faster in qually would have him in 4th – and possibly behind the top 3 after the start tomorrow – a position to challenge Alonso for Victory. Now it looks like he’ll be aiming for a podium, unless he can clear Webber (likely at the start!), the Force Indias and Massa on hards – depends on the top speeds. Maybe they’ll try and 1 stop the Lotuses? Grosjean similarly could have been a few places higher up.

        2. One question, were alonsos timed lap tyres new or used? Despite that this weekend was always meant to be red bulls.

          1. Used Tires.

          2. Alonso starts on 6-lap old mediums. That may put him at a disadvantage compared to the others since he’ll have to pit earlier and into traffic

  2. My one question: where did Rosberg find that lap from!? Fantastic performance!

  3. Massa starting 4th on hards! Best chance for a win tomorrow in a fast Ferrari I think.

    1. @brum55

      If Massa is to win again, surely this is his best shot.

      1. He just needs to make sure he doesn’t over push his tyres. When ever he is behind Alonso he pushes so hard in order to keep with him, he wrecks his tyres and finds himself losing out on the pitstops.

        1. I agree, if you watch races where he is behind Alonso he tries so hard to stick to him it surely must damage his tyres especially these new pirellis. Hopefully he will keep his position at start and maybe he has a good chance to win.

  4. Did Massa set his time on hard tire?

    1. Yes he did.

  5. an Impressive lap from Nico. for sure he would be better competitor than Button in terms of one lap pace. Considering bad degradation of Mercedes, he would be out of contention for the win, still impressive. Alonso is in very good place for the race, either Massa who gained a couple of places due to others’ penalty. I should say Kimi is disappointing. Lotus lost something during friday night? Still he would be in the battle if have good start.

    1. i think Kimi will do a 2 stopper..

  6. good call for Massa on hards, taking advantage of Hamilton’s and Webber’s penalties. let’s see if he’s able to deliver a good performance tomorrow.

    1. for sure good call of tyre but also might be tough request of race pace. still, it’s one of favorite circuits of him. We will see.

      1. For sure we will see

        1. for sure…

  7. 5 place penalty for Webber? Should be lower surely?

    1. it’s a 3-place penalty

    2. 3 place penalty

      1. Ahhh k cheers

    3. No 3 place’s

    4. Well Hamilton effectively gave him a place, so really it was four places he lost. So he was pretty much where he should be considering the pace of the others.

      1. Sorry, two places!

  8. Great performance from the Force India’s, starting 5th and 6th. Congrats to Rosberg as well, that was an incredible lap! Gonna be an interesting race with a lot of pitstop strategies and changes, can’t wait!

    1. Such a shame Hulkenberg isn’t in that car. I want to see him at the sharp end of the grid next year.

  9. Shouldn’t Webber start 8th? His penalty was given before Ham’s.

    1. yes so Webber moves from 5th to 8th, then Hamilton would have moved 5 places down thus promoting webber up at place to 7th.

      1. got it thanks !

    2. It doesn’t matter when the penalty was given. Hamilton is P4, five place penalty to P9 so Webber moves up 1 to 4th, so his 3 place penalty puts him 7th.

      1. @debaser91 according to rules, first to get penalty gets demoted first

    3. I also think it should be Kimi 7th and Webber 8th with Hamilton 9th…??

  10. Massa as outside bet for the win? P4, he’s on the harder tyre, and he has always been very good in Bahrain. Great response from Rosberg after Hamilton’s pole last week, I don’t think Lewis will like being out qualified by his teammate by four tenths one bit. Very disappointed with Raikkonen, if he wants to challenge for the title he needs to qualify better consistently. They have a quick race car but he keeps handicapping himself by qualifying further back.

    1. You do know Hamilton has had trouble today? And Lewis did not improve he was only 2tenths away from the first run.

      1. Rosberg was faster than Hamilton today. Simple as that.

        1. True, but Hamilton’s been out-qualified by his teammates before, but he usually comes on top over the course of a season. He’s already out qualified Nico 3 times this season, and at a new team as well. And he’s comfortably ahead in terms of points. So I don’t think he would be overly concerned…

          1. Well, Nico suffered from 2 retirements, not to mention a team order. I know it’s new team for Hamilton but I believe he doesn’t care about car’s characteristics as much as others(possibly minimum level in the field), I think Nico should not be ruled out. He already gained Button level reputation from me.

          2. Well over the first three races I actually think Rosberg has been the quicker Mercedes driver. He’s been quicker than Lewis in practice and Q1 and Q2 but didn’t get the job done in Q3 for whatever reason, which compromised his race. If he starts getting it right on a Saturday I think Hamilton will have his hands full, although he will probably still beat him over the season.

          3. You are supposed to be quicker when it counts, not in FP2. Hamilton has been quickest when it matters most, Q3 and the race.

          4. Quicker in Q3 certainly. But in Malaysia Rosberg was ordered to stay behind, and his car has broken down in the other two races.

          5. He was running behind in both other races, particularly in China.

    2. I dont think Massa has race pace to take advantage of that tyre.

      1. lol the quickest driver over first 3 races you sure? did you see the Rosberg train on first stint in China, Hamilton was 6 secs ahead in Melbourne before Nico retired. 1 race Nico has been quicker and that was Malaysia.

  11. I’n interested to see what Massa can do starting on the prime tyre! Good qualifying session, but Formula 1 had to make up to the fans after China…

    Perez won’t last. It’s a fact Button’s not the greatest qualifier on earth but Perez doesn’t know how to drive that car anywhere near as well. Was never impressed by Perez, I know the car sucks but Button impresses me while Perez is utterly disappointing.

    1. @roald Given the fact that Button is not so good at bad car as some champions, not to mention qualifying talent, Perez is really disappointing. He’s at least very young and should show good adaptation with the tyre or the car. but yes, he might be just young and inexperienced version of Button. or even worse.

    2. I’m beginning to believe “easy on tyres” means “slow”

  12. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    20th April 2013, 13:14

    Wow. A Mercedes on pole. Really didn’t see that coming.

    Great lap from Nico!

  13. Wow where did that pole come from? Where did Raikkonen’s pace go? (Tears up prediction).

    1. same here, i put RAI for the win lol
      but happy for ROS though

      1. Let’s be real… if everything goes normal there is no match for Fernando, merc and rb are harder on tires and Fernando made the fastest lap on Q1 (on hard compound) and in the last free practice on the hard tyre…

    2. I had him for second, which is still possible but looking at it now I had Vettel for the win and since Alonso is now likely to win from a supporter’s perspective I don’t want Räikkönen to finish second because that’s what I’m hoping Vettel does (or better)!

  14. Hope Massa gets a good start tomorrow. He (and may be Button) bring a good strategy aspect to the race tomorrow.

  15. Merc’s race pace wasn’t that impressive. Massa from 4th on the hards will be a big threat, looking for Raikkonen to come through during the race, he showed excellent long run pace, and he’s further up the grid than last year :P

  16. MB (@muralibhats)
    20th April 2013, 13:24

    only consolation for RAI is that hamilton starts behind him.

    1. MB (@muralibhats)
      20th April 2013, 13:43

      But i still believe RAI can fight for podium tomorrow

  17. I wonder how many stops for Massa.

  18. Nice performance by the Force Indias. Hope they wil convert this into a bagful points tomorrow!

  19. Nice performance by the Force Indias. Hope they will convert this into a bagful points tomorrow!

  20. When will Lotus realise they’re dicing with trouble by only giving Kimi and Romain one shot at the fast lap? So frustrating!

    1. Good point. I don’t think it’s worth what they gain in terms of less tyre degradation or using another set of tyres.

  21. Nice qualifying. Brilliant lap from Rosberg considering that most people probably didn’t think he was in contention for pole today. He really nailed it on a difficult circuit where many drivers were making mistakes that cost them today with small margins between the cars. This includes Perez, Grosjean, Raikkonen, Webber, Hamilton and Alonso – quite the list isn’t it. I suspect that both Mercedes will go backwards in the race tomorrow though, they just seem to be struggling with rear tyre degradation which has been their achilles heel for quite a long time now. The Force Indias have looked fast all weekend but especially in Q2 today. They have a great opportunity tomorrow. I was a bit surprised not to see Button set a time in Q3 considering that three of the top ten cars were 9 tenths off pole, although even Vettel was 2.5 tenths behind Rosbergs lap so the gap to Button could have been more than a second even if he set a time. Should be a good race tomorrow.

  22. Alonso had another good Q3 run, and a great pole lap from Rosberg after the team’s struggles on Friday! Though my other favorites are sadly well down the grid, 12th and 17th this time. Whatever upgrades Caterham put on Pic’s car seemed to work well, outstripping Bianchi by almost a second.

    I wouldn’t mind seeing Massa win this one at all, but it remains to be seen if his strategy will pay off.

  23. Great lap by Massa to put in such a good time on the Hards. The difference in pace between the tyres is not huge but difference in wearing is significant. Would be very interesting to see the strategy they follow, whether they are able to keep he likes of Kimi behind and most importantly whether Ferrari are able to give him the strategic advantage over his team mate.

    Ferrari camp will be a very interesting place to be.

    1. Ferrari camp will be a very interesting place to be.

      +1

  24. Great lap by Rosberg…Alonso must be smiling after seeing Raikkonen 8th on the grid…really disappointed with Raikkonen’s Lap…surely there must have been a mistake…i bet Lotus will be thinking of a 2 stop strategy for Kimi tomorrow…

  25. Is this the best ever qualifying for Force India when both drivers are considered? I don’t think they’ve ever qualified this well before. They have shown good pace over long runs and hopefully they can take advantage of any incidents ahead during the race.

    1. At the 2009 Italian GP the two Force Indias qualified 2nd and 7th, which is on average starting position better than that of today: 4.5 to 5.5.

  26. I wonder if Rosberg destroyed his tyres with that lap.

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