“This pole position is a reward for all the hard-work” – Ferrari’s Mattia Binotto

Scuderia Ferrari claimed a famous pole position at the 2022 season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, as Charles Leclerc stormed to his tenth career pole by just over a tenth from World Champion Max Verstappen. Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr narrowly missed out on the front-row, the Spaniard starts third.

It was an almost perfect first qualifying of the year for Ferrari, who came so close to taking a front-row lockout at the Bahrain International Circuit. The F1-75 has looked strong all weekend, almost on a par with Oracle Red Bull Racing. The F1-75 performed when it mattered though, with Leclerc taking pole position with a 1:30.558.

Ferrari will be hoping for a clean start to the race on Sunday, where reliability looks set to play an instrumental part.

Ferrari Team Principal, Mattia Binotto, is very happy with his drivers performance and believes that the whole team deserve the pole position for all their incredible work.

“We are extremely pleased with today’s performance: we were convinced the potential was there to do well and the fact that both our drivers were in the fight for pole says a lot about the strength of our package – the car, the drivers and everyone who gives their all every day both at the track and back in Maranello.

“This pole position is a reward for all the hard work of the entire team and it’s even more important when one considers where we were two years ago. We have always said that to excel against such strong opponents we have to be perfect and I think, today, as a team we were very good. I know we have the best driver pairing and I feel that was shown to be the case today.“