F1 star thrilled with Bahrain pole but warns of Ferrari threat

Fresh from maintaining his record of clinching pole at every Formula One race this season, Lewis Hamilton warned of the challenge posed by Ferrari to Mercedes at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Hamilton snatched pole at the very end of Saturday's qualifying session, usurping Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel to take his place at the front of the grid for Sunday's race.

The defending champion already holds a 13-point lead over Vettel in the standings and seems ideally placed to widen that gap, although the Briton is not resting on his laurels.

"I feel great. I feel very happy," Hamilton said. "Obviously coming in to the weekend that was the target to master the track and get the car into an area that I'm happy with.

"I'm really grateful to have this beast underneath me to attack these corners.

"They [Ferrari] are very quick this weekend. They're going to be very hard to beat this weekend hopefully our positioning helps. I think we're in a good position. Looking forward to the fight."

Vettel said: "First of all I am very happy with second place. It was a tough session and I didn't find the rhythm I had in practice at the beginning but felt more comfortable near the end. Hopefully we will have good race."

Hamilton's team-mate Nico Rosberg qualified third and the German conceded afterwards that his tactical approach let him down.

"Strategy wise I got it wrong," he said. "I was thinking too much about the race and I underestimated Sebastian's speed.

"I took it easy in Q2 to save the race tyres, so I lacked the rhythm for Q3. That's where I went wrong. Being third is not ideal."