Max Verstappen calls for investigation as Lewis Hamilton sends

Oscar Piastri held off George Russell to claim pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix. McLaren had been in control of qualifying until Lando Norris suffered a disastrous Q3 and he will now start today’s race in P6.

Russell qualified in second but he and Mercedesteam-mate Kimi Antonelli were handed one-place grid penalties for leaving their garages too early. Charles Leclerc will now take P2 with Russell in P3. There was disappointment, too, for Max Verstappen, who suffered braking issues and qualified in P7, and Lewis Hamilton, who apologised to Ferrari for an underperformance.

David Croft revealed Mercedes’ reaction when Kimi Antonelli overtook Max Verstappen in Bahrain.

Speaking over the incident on Sky Sports commentary, Croft said: “Verstappen moves over to the inside to cover off Kimi Antonelli, he knew he was coming.

“Antonelli might be coming back at him again, just under three-tenths the current gap, and that gap is diminishing all the time because here comes Antonelli with the aid of DRS, and he’ll hug that apex around turn four, and then a big gap opens up as Verstappen runs wide and almost wheel-to-wheel through the first part of those corners go Antonelli and Verstappen because the young Italian moves ahead.

“He gets a round of applause in the garage, a little shake of approval from Bono, his race engineer.”

Verstappen exit clause a ‘hot topic’ by the summer say Red Bull

Speaking after the disappointment in Bahrain, Red Bull advisor admitted Verstappen’s exit clause could become a topic of discussion by mid-season.

“Of course, every top driver has an exit clause if performance is not good, but they are all tuned differently. That is not a topic at the moment,” Marko told Formel 1.de.

It has several layouts, but the most commonly-used modern layout spans a staggering 12.944 miles. The lap record belongs to two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Timo Bernhard, who lapped the circuit in a time of 5:19.546 back in 2018.

The circuit – using a different layout – hosted F1 Grands Prix between 1951 and 1976.

Several F1 drivers had been killed in crashes at the circuit over the years, with Niki Lauda’s horrific fiery crash in 1976 proving to be the tipping point in terms of ending the sport’s participation at the circuit.

The week prior to the 1976 race, Lauda had called on his fellow drivers to boycott the race, citing safety concerns and track management failures.