Bahrain Grand Prix: Sebastian Vettel secures his 51st career pole

Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel seized pole position ahead of teammate Kimi Raikkonen as Ferrari completed a front-row lock out in qualifying for today's Bahrain Grand Prix.

Saturday's pole was the 51st of Vettel's career and third in Bahrain. The German, who was the winner in Bahrain last year, lapped the 5.4 km-long Sakhir race track in a time of one minute, 27.958 seconds, edging Raikkonen by a margin of 0.143 seconds. Reigning champions Mercedes, who were clearly fastest two weeks ago in the season-opening race in Australia, only had enough in hand to qualify on the second row of the grid in Bahrain.

Valtteri Bottas, who crashed out of qualifying in Australia, led the German marque's charge in third. Teammate Lewis Hamilton was only fourth, 0.262 seconds off Vettel's pace. The Briton will drop five places on the grid, however, for an unscheduled gearbox change and will only start ninth today.

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