Will Rosberg be able to make third Bahrain pole and convert?

Whether or not another public spat has been resolved, the Mercedes battle lines are drawn ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix with Nico Rosberg in desperate need of gaining some points back from Lewis Hamilton.

Despite being the undisputed king of qualifying last season, a big part of Rosberg’s troubles early in 2015 is a lack of pole positions.

Hamilton has made it a hat-trick from the opening three races of the campaign, but crucially has converted two of those poles into race wins, enabling the Briton to open up a 17-point gap already heading to Bahrain.

However, there was encouragement for Rosberg in China last time out as last season’s championship runner-up got as close as he has done to superseding Hamilton on the Q3 timesheets.

Only two-hundredths of a second separated the Silver Arrows in Shanghai and this should give potential backers of the German belief that he can go one better at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Rosberg is 13/8 to lay down the fastest lap in Q3 and this bet is strengthened by the fact Hamilton’s latest nemesis will be chasing a hat-trick of pole positions in the Arab state.

This is clearly a track that the German relishes throwing his Mercedes around and became the scene of one of the greatest tussles between Rosberg and his teammate last season.

The two cars were going hammer and tong over the closing 10 laps thanks to a safety car situation closing the gap shortly beforehand.

Unfortunately for Rosberg he just couldn’t find the killer manoeuvre and Hamilton held on to close the gap in the championship race.

These roles must be reversed in Bahrain where the fired-up German looks a meaty price at 5/2 to take the chequered flag.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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