Oscar Piastri took the second pole position of his career, his second in a row no less, having been quickest at Suzuka a week ago. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers teams' and drivers' reactions.

McLaren

"A disappointing day. The car’s been amazing, so thank you to the team for their hard work. I’ve just been struggling at times to put together the laps that counted, and this has cost me some positions in Qualifying today. However, we have strong race pace, and we’ll work hard overnight to prepare and look forward to tomorrow’s race, where we will fight to find our way back to the front."

"Pole! I’ve felt good out there pretty much all weekend. We’ve had good pace, and the car feels great, which is the most important thing. It’s a long race tomorrow, and lots can happen, but we’re starting in a strong position so I’m looking forward to it. There’s work to do tonight but I can’t thank the team enough for the car they’ve given me this weekend."

Mercedes

“It was a really strong Q3. I wasn’t really feeling the strongest through Qualifying. I didn’t have the confidence and Q1 and Q2 were a real challenge. In Q3 I got back into my normal rhythm, put in some strong laps and I was really surprised to be so close to pole, ahead of one of the McLarens with Charles [Leclerc] up there too.

"Whilst we will ultimately start P3, it is still a good place to be for tomorrow. This weekend is completely different to last weekend [in Japan]. I was really disappointed with P5 there. I felt we had the potential to qualify much higher up the order but this weekend I wasn’t expecting to be fighting for the front row – I thought P3 was going to be the maximum we could achieve today and we may have been down in P7 as the gaps have been so small.

"I don’t expect it to be a straightforward race tomorrow. I think Oscar [Piastri] is going to be very fast. The McLarens seem to be a long way ahead of the field when it comes to managing their tyres and we know that this will be key for tomorrow’s race. Let’s see what Sunday brings.”

Kimi Antonelli, 4th, 1:30.213
“I made a mistake on lap one in Q3 and that put me on the back foot as I didn’t have a lap on the board. There was plenty of pressure to deliver on lap two, therefore. It wasn’t easy but I’m happy that I put together a decent lap.

"I made a few mistakes here and there across the session, but overall, it’s still my highest grid position of the season despite the post-session penalty and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. My confidence is continuing to build but I’m still learning. This is another good step forward for me. I think the race will be a really tight fight.

"I think it’s going to be really hard to challenge the McLarens, but it’s definitely possible to fight the others. Tomorrow is a long race; our pace looks similar with others so getting a good start is going to be important and we’ll see what we can do from there.”

Ferrari

"It wasn’t the day I was hoping for. The changes made overnight set us back in FP3, and while we applied further setup adjustments ahead of qualifying it just didn’t come together and I also didn’t find the performance window I needed. Credit to Charles, who did a great job out there.

"On a positive note, the race pace looked promising yesterday, and with a long race ahead, there’s still an opportunity to make progress. We’ll analyse the learnings overnight and come back stronger. A big thank you to the team for their continued efforts — we’ll keep pushing."

"I didn't expect this result in qualifying, but I think we have worked very well in the last few weeks and this is the reward. We explored quite a few set-ups and I think I've found a direction that enables me to better extract the potential from the car. In Q3 the lap on scrubbed tyres wasn't great, but the feeling in the car was good and I knew I had the potential to do a much better lap although I didn’t expect it to be good enough for P3.

"It's good to see that we are making progress and I want to thank the team for the great job done on track and in Maranello to bring the upgrade to this race. Everything worked as expected and now we have to focus on the race. It won't be easy to keep this position but we will try and get a good result, as it would be a boost for the whole team."

Alpine

“That was a very good Qualifying and we definitely needed that. I’m very happy for the entire team with that result and performance. I must say, I was struggling a little bit at the start of the session. I was not feeling that comfortable in Q1 with low grip and a lot of sliding. We managed to unlock the potential from the tyres from Q2 onwards and really extracted more and more from them as the session went on.

In the end, Q3, and that last lap, when I crossed the line, I knew it was a special one. Even so, to be fifth and so close to the top three and even pole position is a nice surprise. Great work all round by the whole team and now we must focus on tomorrow. We have some fast cars behind us, we will try to fight them, but we know our goal is to cross the line inside the points.”

“I have mixed emotions after that session even if the majority of the evening was largely very positive. We will start tomorrow’s race in our best starting position of the year on my side. It was all coming together nicely throughout Q1 and most of Q2. I think I missed the window on tyre optimisation on the last run – a little too fast on my warm-up – over preparing them and we probably did not maximise the full potential on that last push lap. Still, plenty of positives there and things to understand for future. Tomorrow will be a long race, with high tyre degradation quite likely. Starting in eleventh means we are knocking on the door of the points so we will see what we can do on strategy and aim to convert today into a top 10 finish in the race.”

Red Bull

“We did everything we could today but that was the maximum we could get in Qualifying. The whole weekend has been difficult. We struggled with the general balance of the car but also the brakes, with the red flag it was hard to get many clean laps in. My final lap was better, and I tried to extract the most out of it, but it was still not good enough compared to the others.

"There’s been very poor grip and we’ve played around with the setup but none of it really worked for us this weekend. There’s a lot to analyse and debrief to understand what we have tried this weekend and how we can attack next weekend. Historically high deg tracks have been good for us but tomorrow will be quite tough and we’re not sure what to expect at the moment. Naturally tomorrow I will do the best I can and we hope we can fight with the teams ahead."

“I have ticked the box of reaching Q3 and that is the first step for me. I think it was good execution, I had the red flag in Q1 with no time set and then I only had one set to make it through to Q3. I am reasonably happy, although P10 is not always the place as a driver that you want to be. It was a good recovery from practice, I will take it for sure, it could be a lot worse, considering the struggles I had in FP3.

"It is just hard to find the performance in this car and I am still learning how to do it best. It requires a lot of concentration to stay in the window this car needs to perform. It was not the easiest car today, you saw that with Max qualifying P7, which is unusual. We just have to, as a Team, make a step forward and I need to keep working hard. I think I have made some progress so far with the Team; it is step by step and only my second race with the Team.

"I didn’t get a great long run in practice but I have some confidence for tomorrow to move forward. At least Max and I are starting semi-close to each other in position so we may be able to do something different with the strategy. I will try to finish as close to him as possible. I want to score points and do lots of overtaking, that is my passion! I will do my best."

Williams

"It was messy today. We spent about three minutes waiting for all the other cars to go past us, stuck in the pit exit traffic jam, which equates to about 25-30 degrees of tyre temperature lost. When that happens, you end up going into Turn 1 with no grip. I had to overtake three cars on my outlap to make the flag. That’s just the way it is, unfortunately.

"Normally we are very good at getting out there, but today we slipped up. As for tomorrow, we have some of the strongest race pace in the midfield and at least you can overtake on this track! It’s going to be tricky to score points, but it is possible and I will give it everything to recover from what happened today."

"It seems like we made a step in the right direction, but we need to keep our heads down and carry on trying different things. I feel I still have margin for improvement, and I want to be higher than P8! Having said that, I’m happy with today and I definitely felt more in control, knowing where to push, where there is potential lap time, and staying disciplined with my driving.

"I’m confident in what we are doing, the speed is there, and I have a great team around me, so I just need to stick to my plan and continue taking the right steps, starting with the race tomorrow and trying to score some points!"

Racing Bulls

"It wasn’t a great Qualifying for us, reaching Q3 was the goal today. We got really close and I feel like we could have gotten through, but I didn’t do a good enough lap. I had a tricky session out there and after the wind changed direction, I felt like the balance of the car went the wrong way and therefore struggled with it.

"I think I had a strong start in my last attempt and thought that was enough, but unfortunately, I was a bit too conservative towards the end of that lap. Tomorrow is going to be interesting, as it will be a two-stop race due to the high tyre degradation. A lot will happen, and if the pace is there, we can fight to get points.”

“Q1 was okay up until I had a wheel spin out of the corner and opened DRS, which closed again on the way to Turn 11. Unsure exactly what happened; if it was something I did, I will definitely learn from it as it’s cost me a lot today, which is pretty frustrating. The car has been quick this weekend, for us it was just piecing it together in Quali.

"I think we had it in a pretty good window and the speed was there, it’s just a shame we had this issue. For tomorrow, it’s positive, we should be able to move forward. When you’re buried, it’s not ideal for tyres so it’s going to be quite tough, but I feel like we have the speed. The long run looks reasonably competitive, but everyone’s doing different things with tyres so let’s see tomorrow.”

Aston Martin

"We maximised our Qualifying tonight with P13 on the grid for tomorrow's race. For Q1 we used three sets of Softs and made it through. We were then quite limited with our options for Q2, and we didn’t have any new sets of Soft tyres left. We haven't had the pace all weekend, so I think it could be a challenging race for us tomorrow. We will keep fighting and hopefully be close to the points."

"The set-up didn't feel quite right today, the ride height was way too high as it turned out, so it was difficult to turn the car around the corners. We always knew coming to Bahrain this wasn't going to be an easy weekend for us, so now we need to do some work and see if there's anything we can change ahead of tomorrow."

Haas

“I feel really sorry for the team, I messed up today. I think we were on for a decent qualifying but I made a mistake – that I don’t usually do in quali, and I pushed too hard at Turn 2 so got on the kerb, bottomed out and lost it at that corner.

I’m disappointed with my performance today, and now we have to rebuild the car. I know the team is going to do an amazing job and tomorrow we’ll go racing.”

“It was just a messy lap; I’ve been struggling a lot all weekend with front-locking and that was the case again in qualifying. It’s really hard to gain confidence with those types of issues and unfortunately I didn’t put a good lap on the board. It’s strange because I felt good in FP2 despite the issues, but I think as I’ve tried to extract more performance out of the car, I’ve been limited more and more. When you don’t have confidence in a car like this, you can’t extract the lap time, so it’s annoying, but we’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

Kick Sauber

"Looking at our performance on track, before the call by the stewards, I think we had made the best of today’s conditions, and therefore I’m quite happy with the performance we put in. Going into qualifying, we knew our day could be tricky, because we had a less-than-ideal FP2 yesterday and our FP3 was cut short with a technical issue this morning.

"The conditions, with a strong breeze and changing grip levels, made the car challenging to drive at the limit: still, we had extracted the most out of the car, so it’s a pity to start from P16 after the Q2 efforts were deleted. It’ll be a big challenge to get into the fight for the points: we will need a good start and a good strategy, of course, and I have full confidence in everyone in the team that we’ll give it our best shot."

Gabriel Bortoleto, 18th, 1:32.186
"It's been a rather difficult qualifying for us today. The conditions changed quite a lot with the wind, and unfortunately, our car is very sensitive to these variables. I felt the lap I delivered was a good one, but we were lacking some grip, and ultimately, we haven't been able to progress past Q1.

"After a promising Friday, I was hoping to reach Q2 today, so it’s disappointing. Looking ahead to tomorrow, we know it will be a challenging race, but we’ll give everything we have. We’ll stay focused and try to get in the mix to move further up on the grid, maximising any opportunities that come our way."