Bottas takes pole ahead of Hamilton for Mercedes front row at Bahrain Grand Prix

Valtteri Bottas has taken his first pole position as Mercedes lock out the front row of the 2017 Bahrain Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari starts third.

The first two F1 races of 2017 have seen honours shared between Mercedes and Ferrari, a welcome change to the dominance of Mercedes in recent years. But that dominance might just be resurgent.

In qualifying for the 2017 Bahrain Grand Prix this afternoon, Mercedes has managed to lock out the front row for tomorrow’s race, and it’s new boy Valtteri Bottas on pole – his maiden pole – ahead of former world champion Lewis Hamilton.

The gap between Bottas and Hamilton is tiny – just 0.023s – but the Mercedes pair are nearly half a second quicker then Vettel’s Ferrari. But that could be down to Mercedes’ qualifying mode, and the race could be very different.

Behind the top three it’s Ricciardo in the Red Bull on the second row, as Raikkonen struggled with his Ferrari’s handling and had to settle for fifth spot, with Max Verstappen putting his Red Bull in sixth.

Beyond the top three teams, Renault grabbed seventh and 10th with Hulkenburg and Palmer, Felipe Massa is eighth for Williams and Romain Grosjean put his Haas in ninth.

McLaren continue woefully, with Alonso in 15th after his engine gave out, and Vandoorne not even making Q2 and starting in 17th