The Friday in F1 Chinese GP saw weather changes which shuffled the order in sprint qualifying with Red Bull off Top 3.
After the lone practice on Friday of F1 Chinese GP, the sprint qualifying was disrupted by rain in Q3 which shuffled the order. McLaren’s Lando Norris took pole after his deleted lap was reinstated by the FIA in the final stages of the session.
His teammate Oscar Piastri too had a chance to be in the Top 3 but for a mistake on his final lap. Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton also upped his pace, as did Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, to secure a position in the Top 3 of the standings.
Both used their experience and had a clean run, while their teammates did not have a sound run to be knocked out in SQ2. George Russell did not have a good build-up to his session, while Lance Stroll rued lack of grip for his low-key run.
The reigning champion Max Verstappen was outside the Top 3 after grip issues, while Sergio Perez was outside the Top 5 having made a mistake on his final attempt. The Ferrari pair were down as well, with Charles Leclerc even having a spin.
Norris: “I’m extremely happy, first of all. A big thanks to the whole team. It was tricky, you’re always nervous going into a session like this, especially for quali when you almost know it’s going to rain. I was quite happy with how it was in the dry, I think we’ve had good pace all weekend so far. I got a bit nervous. They’re conditions where you’ve just got to risk a lot, you’ve got to push, build tyre temperature and so forth. I was quick, I just kept catching a Ferrari, so I had to keep backing off. I didn’t do the first two laps well at all, but I got a good final one, a good enough one for pole. I’m happy… sad it’s not for a proper qualifying, but it’s good enough. You only have three laps. The first two I aborted on both, so I was like, ‘The last lap is all or nothing’. But it was getting wetter and wetter, so actually the conditions for the final two laps were a lot worse than the second lap.
“I was a little bit nervous that I’d made a few mistakes, started to aquaplane quite a bit, but it’s good fun – it gets your heart going. Getting up on top is exactly what we wanted, so a nice surprise and a good position for tomorrow. I mean, we did some of our homework [in FP1] this morning, we did some consecutive laps to try and understand. It depends what the weather is, there’s still a chance of rain tomorrow, so if it’s like this then I think the chances are relatively decent. But the race is still very different to qualifying, so I’m sure everyone’s going to catch up a bit tomorrow. But the pace is good whether it’s wet or dry, and I think we’re in a good position. A bit of a surprise, like I said, but I’m very happy, the team did a good job, the car’s feeling good and so am I, and it’s paying off.”
Hamilton: “It was very tricky – tricky conditions. Not a lot of grip, as you saw, for everyone. But yeah, [I’m] so happy. As soon as I saw the rain coming I was getting excited, because naturally in the dry conditions we’re not quick enough, so when the rain came then I kind of thought that I’d have a bit of a better opportunity, and then that’s when it kind of all came alive.” “It really depends what the conditions will be,” he explained. “If it’s like that [today] then maybe we’ll have a chance of being somewhere up there. I think if it’s dry then naturally the Ferraris and the Red Bulls will come by, and maybe we can hold off some of the others.”
Alonso: “Quite stressful, to be honest! I mean in SQ1 we were just looking at the [weather] radar and the threat of rain was there since the first minute. We made some progress in SQ1 and then [reached] SQ2 just, because we were P8 or P9. We were not super competitive in the dry, and then it rained at the end in SQ3 and every lap was a little bit different conditions. The tyres were a bit better every lap but the circuit was a little bit worse with more rain, so it was difficult to judge the level of grip and the level of risk that you wanted to apply. At the end, I’m extremely happy. We have a lot of racing laps now in the weekend, the Sprint race tomorrow and obviously the main race on Sunday. Let’s see if we can qualify well again tomorrow.”
Verstappen: “It was incredibly slippery. I just struggled a lot to get the temperature in the tyres, so that’s why it was just very difficult to keep the car on track and it never really switched on for me, so it was just like driving on ice. That’s why also I think it’s quite deserved where we are in qualifying – it was just not really working for me in the wet, even though in the dry I think we looked quite good, so I’m of course quite happy with that. For sure. It’s not ideal to start on the inside here. There’s a lot lower grip left to right with this painted stuff on the tarmac, so we have to try and have the best start possible, and then of course I think it’s going to be quite a long stint on one set of tyres in the Sprint, but that makes it quite interesting.”
Leclerc: “To be honest, the very first out-lap was extremely tricky. It was very difficult to switch on the tyres. I tried to be a bit aggressive, but obviously I lost it out of Turn 8 and that compromised a little bit our quali, because then the steering wheel was a little bit bent. All in all, I don’t think there were any miracles [possible], there wasn’t much more we could have done. Obviously on my side again I didn’t maximise qualifying, which I’m not happy with. “If I have to look to the positives it is that I think in the dry I did some big steps forward, and on that I’m happy because I’ve been working a lot on the preparation of the tyres in the dry and it seems to be paying off for today at least. But let’s see tomorrow, the race will be long.”
The big surprise from F1 sprint qualifying was the double Top 10 result for Stake, where both Valtteri Bottas and home hero Zhou Guanyu made it in. It was a good result to start the weekend but they will hope to remain in the position to score.
They managed to beat other teams like Haas, Visa Cash App RB, Williams and Alpine. For the American team, Nico Hulkenberg felt SQ3 was possible, but Kevin Magnussen reckoned it was enough after the strategy they chose in SQ2.
For Visa Cash App RB, it was good enough for Daniel Ricciardo to make it in, but Yuki Tsunoda did not have any grip to be knocked out in SQ1. They were in with Williams pair who did have a good time, as Alpine’s Pierre Gasly explained his FP1 issues.
Bottas: “I’m happy for the whole team, it’s good to see both cars in the top 10 in mixed conditions, which wasn’t easy for sure, and especially for Zhou. I’m really happy and pleased that he could make it into the top 10. It’s awesome for him and all the Chinese fans. “I’ve got no idea of the race pace [for the Sprint] based on Practice 1, which was really a lot of evolving track conditions. So it’s hard to read. But at least on a single lap, we seem not too bad, and in any conditions we were there or thereabouts, so that’s promising for the rest of the weekend.”
Magnussen: “I’m not disappointed but we knew after practice that the likes of Ferrari, Mercedes and I think one of the Aston Martin’s didn’t really set lap times in that session. We didn’t take the right choice in terms of strategy in SQ2, doing two runs, basically stopping in between – and for the second lap it started raining. We took a bit of a gamble there. It could have paid off, but overall, P12 – it’s not too bad.”
Tsunoda: “I struggled with the balance and grip in general from FP1. Even for Sprint Qualifying, we tried different things, but I couldn’t put it all together. Not sure what’s happening there but it definitely was not easy today. It’s not because of the weather and the general track conditions, I just could not achieve more. I haven’t struggled this much so far. It’s strange, but there are still sessions to go, so we’ll continue collecting the data. Qualifying tomorrow is very important so hopefully, we can find something until then, so let’s see how it goes.”
Gasly: “A challenging Friday morning session for us, due to a high voltage problem but the team worked hard and managed to swap the Power Unit and the battery before Sprint Qualifying as a precautionary measure. The session turned out slightly better than expected, although, we are far from where we want to be currently. From what we have seen so far, the upgrades to Esteban’s car look to be a step in the right direction, so I am looking forward to Miami where we both will be able to run the updated car. In the meantime, we will continue working hard to get the maximum out of the car in the Sprint Race and Qualifying tomorrow.”
Albon: “Tough session today. We were the first cars out, so the track was still very green, which damaged the tyres. We tried to go for a second lap at the end of SQ1 but the tyres were gone and we didn’t have the grip. I don’t know if SQ2 was a possibility today, but I think there was potential to be in a better position than we are. We’ll treat the Sprint race as a session to learn more about the car ahead of Qualifying.”
Here’s how F1 Chinese GP sprint qualifying panned out
Here’s special Chinese GP trophy
Here’s link to a F1 Discord channel, join in to interact
