Bahrain Grand Prix 2014: Rosberg takes pole for Mercedes ahead of Hamilton

Nico Rosberg has taken pole position in the 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton. Red Bull’s Ricciardo starts third.

It’s already staring to look like Mercedes is going to dominate F1 in 2014, and the performance of the two Mercedes in qualifying for the 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix did nothing to change that.

Essentially a duel between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, it was Rosberg’s turn to take pole position with Lewis Hamilton having to settle for second place on the grid after driving too deep in to a corner on his last flying lap and giving up the fight to take pole from his team mate. It was Rosberg’s second successive pole in Bahrain.

The rest of the grid spots were really also-rans, with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo managing an impressive third place (although he’ll start way back tomorrow after a ten place penalty imposed after Malaysia), easily out-qualifying team mate and reigning champion, Sebastian Vettel, who only managed eleventh spot.

Behind Ricciardo was a strong performance from Williams’ Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez’ Force India, followed by Kimi Raikkonen in the Ferrari, Jenson Button in the McLaren, Felipe Massa in the second Williams, Kevin Magnusson in the second McLaren and Fernando Alonso rounding out the top ten in the second Ferrari.

But it was, once again, Mercedes’ day in Bahrain, and it’s hard to see how there will be any serious challenges to their dominance in tomorrow’s race.

But it could be an interesting tussle between Hamilton and Rosberg