The hotter temperatures and circuit layout in Bahrain played perfectly the Ferrari’s strengths as Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen easily locked out the front row of the grid for the second round of the 2018 season.

The German’s 1:27:958 was one and half tenths quicker than Raikkonen’s best lap. However, the Finn cited traffic as an issue during his final run in Q3. Valtteri Bottas will line up third for Mercedes and share the second row with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.

Lewis Hamilton had set the fourth quickest time overall but drops to ninth following an forced gearbox change. Elsewhere, Max Verstappen made an early exit from qualifying with a crash in the opening session. The Dutchman is slated to start the Bahrain grand prix from fourteenth on the grid.

Pierre Gasly was the star of qualifying as he remarkably set the fifth quickest time in his Toro Rosso Honda. Kevin Magnussen, Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz round out the top ten on the grid. It was a dismal day for McLaren as Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne managed only the thirteenth and fourteenth quickest times. Similarly, Williams continues to struggle as Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll are set to line up in eighteenth and twentieth, respectively.

While qualifying is a vital part of any race weekend prizes are only handed out on race day. And with Hamilton having to fight his way through from ninth, on a contra strategy, it’s advantage Ferrari in Bahrain.