Today was the first night qualifying session in Bahrain, and like the other night events in Singapore and Abu Dhabi - the artificial lighting makes everything look very shiny. It is very easy to forget how much we hated the look of F1 2014 when every car glistens and looks magnificent, especially in HD - and I noticed that the cars do seem to sound a lot better on Sky, which is probably blasphemy but only goes to serve how much money they've used to rip the sport away from the BBC and over-engineer their coverage.
Our new age of dominance continues, as the field is crushed week in, week out by those two silver cars out front. Interesting revelations suggested that this substantial advantage has something to do with some clever tinkering that Mercedes have done with the positioning of the turbo unit and air compressor, or some such engineering gubbins. Whatever their secret is, it is certainly working exceptionally well - in many of the sessions this weekend opening up a second over the rest of the grid. But beyond those two, the rest of the grid is very interesting, as the gap between 3rd and around 13th was less than half a second in the middle of Q2, so the sport is a lot more competitive than it used to be, just not at the sharpest end of the grid.
Q1
It almost seemed as if Mercedes were mocking the opposition in the first part of qualifying, they had a margin of over a second from those behind them - initially that being Esteban Gutierrez in the Sauber - to make matters worse they did that on the harder of the two compounds. With only six cars scheduled to be relegated in Q1, four of which belonged to the bottom two teams, you'd think more teams would have enough of an advantage to make it through comfortably. But as we reached the mid point of the session we had Magnussen and Raikkonen sitting in the relegation zone with both Toro Rossos. This meant that the Lotus team were looking at two cars in Q2 and Kamui Kobayashi was up in 14th place for Caterham - a team who were slower than the GP2 junior team in practice.
It may have been a nice thought to see the form book torn up even more, but some degree of normality won through. Ricciardo proved once more to be the closest competitor to the Mercedes cars on raw pace, using the soft tyres to set a faster time. To demonstrate how difficult things were in the other side of the Red Bull garage - the once all powerful Vettel couldn't defeat the Mercedes when using the softer and faster tyres. Towards the back, the Toro Rossos, Raikkonen and Magnussen comfortably escaped the relegation zone. Maldonado made it into Q2 at the expense of Adrian Sutil, but Grosjean in the second Lotus beat Pastor by 0.009s to steal the last qualification place.
At the very end of the session, we saw a strange incident where it appeared that Adrian Sutil was defending his position from Grosjean before the final corner - almost forcing the Lotus off track, which is presently under investigation.
Q2
Because it was dry for the first time in 2014, we got to see the new Q2 regulations where drivers who made it into Q3 will have to start the race on the set of tyres they completed their fastest Q2 time on. Because the FIA have an obsession with adding complexity to stupid rules instead of just removing them in the first place. None of this made any difference to the Mercedes team - but a comeback was emerging. Having being comprehensively beaten in Malaysia by Hamilton, Rosberg was starting to issue some payback - taking two tenths off Lewis' time. At this point it Mercedes called it a day and didn't need to bother setting another time such was their advantage...
More Mercedes power towards the front as Hulkenberg and Jenson Button lined up third and fourth but they were still over a second behind the two front running cars. Alonso was immediately flying the flag for anyone not running with the German power plants. After the team order issues in Malaysia in the Williams garage, the pairing made sure that Valtteri Bottas was not faster than Felipe - or the other way round - by setting identical lap times, down to the thousandth of a second.
Positions shuffled quite a lot towards the end of the session, some for the better... others less so. Sergio Perez made significant gains in comparison to Hulkenberg who dropped out of the session in a reversal of intra-team form. Vettel also failed to make it through, while Ricciardo went third fastest - it is an odd state of affairs at Red Bull.
Q3
This season Q3 is two minutes longer, yet for the opening two minutes nobody did anything completely defeating the objective of extending the session... Eventually there was some track action as the first of the nine cars doing two runs took to the track. Bottas set the benchmark time, only to be completely blown away by Rosberg's time - Hamilton tried his best to compete with Nico, but could only come within quarter of a second of the German. How the tide had turned after last weekend. Bottas and Perez being the closest competition at this point in the session.
Raikkonen joined the hunt as it was time for the second run, and as much as we would have liked some big, action packed climactic conclusion to qualifying, it didn't quite materialise. Hamilton ran off the circuit at turn on handing the pole to Rosberg who didn't need to complete his final run. Ricciardo jumped up to third place, but with the penalty from Malaysia will be dropped down to 13th anyway. Other than Raikkonen making it into 6th place (5th on the grid) no-one really improved their position - and that was that frankly...
The Bonus Points Championship Points Championship
You'd think the first dry qualifying session would be a return to the uneventful tales we've encountered in the past, but in this new era the cars look so much more entertaining when driven on the edge. And there were some general contenders for bonus points this time around, so the winners are.
- 10pts - Sergio Perez - A strong comeback after being consistently beaten by the Hulk
- 8pts - Valtteri Bottas - Equalling his best ever grid start, and the closest car to the factory Mercedes team
- 6pts - Nico Rosberg - Take that Hamilton, that is all
- 5pts - Daniel Ricciardo - Who thought Vettel, in a functioning car would be this far behind the new Austrlian
- 4pts - Kamui Kobayashi - Spent a long time outside the relegation zone and leads the bottom division.
- 3pts - Kimi Raikkonen - Finally managed to out-qualify Alonso
- 2pts - Felipe Massa - For achieving true neutrality in Q2 no-one is faster or slower than Felipe
- 1pt - Stoffel Vandoorne - Dominant performances now in GP2, demonstrating that McLaren know how to find quick drivers.
Penalty Points Championship
As the stewards haven't published anything thus far with regards to Sutil on Grosjean - I shall take matters into my own virtual hands and issue Adrian with a penalty point. Looking at the incident, the only explanation I can think of is that Adrian moved over to the inside to let Romain past at the same time as the Lotus was trying to make a pass down that same side. The last time that sort of thing took place - Chris Van Der Drift was fired up into the side of a bridge at Brands Hatch and ended up in hospital. Yes there is less scenery in Bahrain, but it is a dangerous situation.
Looking to Tomorrow
Here's hoping this race is miles better than the Malaysian GP that never quite materialised last time out, but under the lights and with cross winds affecting the circuit even a dull race will look prettier. That said Bahrain was the stand-out event of 2013 and has some act to follow up with - but it does have the potential to capitalise on the opportunities presented to us.
The whole world is expecting the Mercedes team to run away with it and barring any retirements and mechanical dramas, there is nothing to stop them doing so. There is only one place on the podium realistically up for grabs and a lot of cars fast enough to challenge for it, Bottas, Perez and Button with Mercedes power are in the immediate running. But we also have the likes of Vettel and Hulkenberg and now Ricciardo from outside the top ten with cars several rows faster than their starting position suggests. To make matters easier a night race means that this will be the first live race here in Blog HQ... bring it on.
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