Key events
Into the last minute or two of Q1. Nobody has topped Norris and Piastri yet.
Q1: Verstappen, Tsunoda and Ocon were the three who failed to clock valid times in that first lap.
Ocon appeared to have an issue with his seat, but has just gone into P9. Can the two Red Bulls challenge for the top?
The two Ferraris are out on the track, with Charles Leclerc jumping under 1min 31.5 seconds … however both Norris and Piastri have just pipped that time, going closer to 1min 31.
The Mercedes duo of Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell clock times good enough for the top 10.
Verstappen hit the brakes far too late on a corner and he’s messed up big time. No lap time for him as he heads for the pit lane.
Jack Doohan currently sits in the quickest position with less than 10 minutes remaining in Q1.
Q1: 1min 32.362secs is the first time clocked by anyone – Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, with Hulkenberg half a second off that. Stroll’s lap time won’t count due to a minor infringement.
Plenty of the other drivers are heading out now, including Max Verstappen.
Lance Stroll in the Aston Martin is the first driver out onto the track.
Nico Hulkenberg is out there now, too, with soft tyres the order of the day for most of these teams in qualifying.
Right, almost time to get under way. The 3.36-mile Bahrain circuit is prepped and ready.
There’s a fair degree of wind in the air around Bahrain tonight. Temperatures have dropped to around 20C, or thereabouts, with teams still taking every effort to ensure their cars don’t overheat.
It was absolutely roasting during practice earlier.
McLaren chief Zak Brown is the next one in front of the TV cameras. He’s “excited” about the “epic Lando v Oscar battles” that we’re going to see this year.
Yet another suggestion that McLaren don’t have a No 1 or indeed a No 2 driver this year. And a reminder to him that McLaren have never won in Bahrain. “We’ve got to change that,” he smiles.
How many times does Lewis Hamilton get interviewed? It feels like a heck of a lot, yet he’s always so calm and collected.
“It’s good to see we’re taking steps forward,” he says on the modifications that have been made to the Ferrari this weekend. “I hope we can extract more from it.”
Here are the full standings from the third practice session. Not long until qualifying begins in earnest.
George Russell believes McLaren have the quickest car on the grid right now and that everyone else has some work to do.
This is what the British Mercedes man said:
They [McLaren] are a long way ahead in the middle sector, where the tyres are overheating.
A bit of work to do but I think we’re fighting for next best. I think it’s going to be close between us, Ferrari and Max. But unlike the first three races, I feel this race won’t be dominated by qualifying, it will be dominated by race pace and tyre degradation.
It’s hilarious that Russell is talking about Mercedes, Ferrari and … Max. Verstappen is a one-man team at this point.
A reminder that qualifying begins at 5pm. Stay tuned until then. Who fancies pole in Bahrain?
Practice: Oscar Piastri and McLaren were quickest in practice in Bahrain.
The Australian was was 0.668 seconds faster than Lando Norris and 0.834 secs quicker than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who was third. Lewis Hamilton was fourth and then came the two Mercedes, George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.
Max Verstappen was down in eighth with his Red Bull teammate Yuki Tsunoda the 19th fastest of the 20 drivers who took to the track.
Things could be very different in qualifying, of course.
Preamble
What does the wild and wacky world of Formula One have in store for us this afternoon? The searing heat of Bahrain is our destination today and the question is: can Max Verstappen pull another rabbit from the Red Bull hat or will the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri restore their dominance?
Those questions (and more) will be answered over the next hour or two after a few laps of this inventively-named Bahrain International Circuit. So far this season, qualifying in pole position has amounted to a fairly hefty race advantage.
To properly whet your appetite, here’s our man Giles Richards with a scene-setter from the Middle East. Let’s get started.
