The Saturday in F1 Spanish GP turned out to be a similar at the front with McLaren on top, but the field as close and Yuki Tsunoda had a disaster to end up last.
There was no beating McLaren on Saturday in F1 Spanish GP, especially Oscar Piastri who took another pole ahead of teammate Lando Norris. The Australian worked it well after Friday slip, especially to beat his title rival and also teammate in a straight fight for the top spot.
Norris made mistakes but was generally happy with his improved run in qualifying, where he has struggled off-late. The two laughed off the Q3 tow game situation, as they gear up for a solid fight on Sunday, in a bid to improve their chances to win the world championship.
There could be fight from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, but the Dutchman is not certain about his race pace as yet. The goal will be to disrupt the McLaren F1 party, but how far can he go with it, remains a question mark. His teammate Yuki Tsunoda had a disastrous afternoon, though.
Whether it was a close field or not in Q1, Tsunoda ended up last in the order. He had no visible dramas on his lap, but there was no pace. He said he tried all the set-up before qualifying, but nothing seemed to be working. Even though he is on older parts, the Japanese was perplexed about his performance.
It was a sudden fall, especially after some decent outing in the last few races. It wasn’t bad for the Ferrari and Mercedes pair though. George Russell made the most in fourth, even though he wanted to try to push more courtesy of two from Andrea Kimi Antonelli, which was not agreed.
The Italian returned to Q3 after last two weekends. There was a gamble on the side of Ferrari from Charles Leclerc, who decided against a final run in Q3, in order to save a soft tyre for the race. If the strategy fails, the Monegasque stated that he will take the blame for it.
He is in seventh which is not bad enough position to start from. Teammate Lewis Hamilton felt much better in the car after low-key run in FP2. He even got through Q2 after doing just the one lap, which is rare for the Brit and even Ferrari. He is gunning for a podium finish on Sunday.
Piastri: “It was pretty good. I think Sector 1 in particular felt quite strong and halfway through Sector 2. The back end of the lap was a little bit trickier, and I’d actually lost a little bit of time. But I think here, if you use up your tires in the first half of the lap, the second half becomes very tough. So clearly, it was good enough, which is a great thing, obviously. The car’s been feeling really good today and I’ve been able to put in consistent laps, which has been nice and a bit of a contrast to yesterday. So, it’s been a good day. On the tow thing, I went out very early for the first run of Q3 and I think it was just coincidence that Lando ended up behind me opening the lap. Of course, when you cross the line to start your lap, it’s maybe not the nicest feeling, but we’ll discuss it.
“There was nothing untoward going on. Unless Lando’s going to spill his master plan that him and Will had! But I think it was just coincidence. As for the race, I think trying to get a good start and keep the lead is a good idea probably. But there’s going to be some strategy involved tomorrow. The long runs yesterday were pretty painful for everyone, I think. So, it’s going to be a different race to a lot of the races we’ve had this year. Hopefully, a bit different to last weekend. I think it will be an interesting race still and it’s not as simple as take the lead at the start and cruise from there. It’s going to be a challenge to manage the tyres, timing your stops right. There’s going to be a lot going on.”
Norris: “Just a couple little mistakes. Turn 1 – which is kind of the first place you don’t want to make a mistake, just because it harms the rest of the lap with the tyres and things. So just a couple of little squiggles there and the exit of Turn 4 as well. So just not a perfect lap, not the cleanest lap, but still improved, surprisingly. So the pace was easily there. Just a couple too many mistakes. The speed was easily there today. And sometimes you just don’t put the laps in. Today was good. I think I was a little bit behind at the start of qualifying and I caught up nicely. I know where I lost that time on the final lap. It was just trying a little bit too much and just not being quite tidy enough – especially around a lap like Barcelona.
“One little oversteer in Turn 1, Turn 2, you kind of already know it’s going to be a tricky rest of the lap. So, it’s still good. I still feel fine. I’m happy with second, especially in Barcelona – it’s not the end of the world. So, a positive weekend. For the two, we planned it the whole weekend! No. I didn’t know Oscar was going out first, to be honest. I tried to get a slipstream from someone. I think I was unlucky that it was Oscar. It was just a coincidence. I was tenth or something in the queue. I don’t know who I’m going to get a slipstream from because you’re waiting two minutes in the pit lane. So yeah, just coincidence.”
Verstappen: “It was fine. I think it was consistently the same delta behind. So Q1, Q2, Q3. Just my first one in Q3 was a bit more difficult because we tried a different out-lap approach and that didn’t work. But yeah, clearly just lacking a bit too much. Sector 1 was quite tough. Turn 1 was never really good, even though I tried different approaches, but just didn’t seem to find the grip there. The rest… It was fine. The car was in a decent window. Unfortunately, not fast enough, but I had fun out there. The car, around here, qualifying flat out, fast corners, it is really enjoyable. I think it’s time to shine in Turn 1, yeah. Make it three-wide for the pictures. Why not? I don’t know. Honestly, I think looking at pace, it will be tough. Like Oscar said, it’s not all about the start and Turn 1. You need to be good on tyres. It’s a long race. A lot can happen. So, I’ll just try to maximise what I got.”
Tsunoda: “Yeah, I mean, straight away, from FP1, first push, I said on the radio, that’s something I feel is not right. It’s just the level, it’s not really matching to my expectation, how I feel in the car, in terms of grip level overall. Obviously we tried to sort that issue throughout the week, but especially when you’re limited by overall grip, whenever we change set-ups, it just makes a bit of a plaster feeling. It’s not able to cure the core limitation, which I had. It’s a shame. I don’t think it’s the set-up. Because to be honest, we tried almost every set-up. There’s obviously some preference here and there, but I think I’m still convinced that we’re able to at least put it all together in terms of the car balance. And like I said, the car balance itself is not bad, and at least also my confidence was there. The lap in qualifying on both tyres, especially the last push, was pretty good, so it doesn’t really stack up with my results and with the pace that I’m having. I rode slightly more aggressively after the last corner, but I don’t think it’s a… I didn’t go really crazy at all.
“I didn’t accept the level and saw multiple cars going there. So it’s not like I damaged the car. Until the previous Grand Prix, especially until Monaco, I was having good progress throughout, and last two Grands Prix, some sessions I was matching or a bit faster than Max, and suddenly it drops like hell. And whatever I do, it relapses. Even like a long run was a good example, just whatever I do, nothing happens, and it feels like this car is eating the tyres like hell, having degradation massively. It doesn’t really stack up. I think the core limitation is still there, and I don’t know what it is, and I can’t really have any answer for that. ”In terms of positiveness, I’ll say in terms of how I built throughout the week and how my combs and everything, One of the cleanest and also my lap as well. At least in terms of the consistency in terms of one lap, how I put it all together. Every lap since FP1, also pretty consistent as well. I think from FP1 there was not anything like massive mistake in my first lap. Until previous grand prix, I had multiple mistakes on my push lap, which gives an idea why I was slow and some limitation. But at least this week, I was there, the consistency was there, so that was positive. But it is shame that it didn’t really follow that progression that I had in myself. To be completely honest, this grand prix was, for me, really special. Let’s see. But I think I’ve done differently, at least until previous grands prix, and the team were on the same page with me. The pace was really there. Monaco was a shame with the red flag but at least I’ve shown pace.
“I heard multiple times from the team that it’s been a while that this second driver is able to match Max. So they were happy. But this grand prix somehow just drops massively for whatever reason, and I’m not able to show my performance, which is a shame. It’s something that for this grand prix I feel is really, really strange. I’ll try my best tomorrow, whatever I can do to be in top 10, I’ll do, but the thing is, I don’t think we’re able to cure the poor limitations since FP2, which was really lap by lap, just tyres degrading, so with that said, it will be tough realistically, but hopefully with a couple of set-up changes, we’ll make it a little bit better, other than that, let’s see how it goes. As long as we find a clear limitation, or cause a clear issue that we see in the car, I think we’ll take it. But even myself, I don’t think there’s so much point to change the set-up, we just need to change the set-up, because we did almost everything, just sliding around. We’ll have to discuss, but I can’t see what kind of set-up will make the game change.”
Hamilton: “I was not frustrated…I was just confused because we didn’t really change anything in the car. All of a sudden we lost some downforce from the floor, and there was a massive shift in balance, and we didn’t do anything. I got into FP2 hoping for the same car, so that was bit confusing, we discovered it afterwards, and we rectified that, and the car has been much better, so we have clearly improved for qualifying, which is a real positive. But we’ve got to keep building from here because we clearly don’t have the pace of the guys up ahead. In terms of new TD, the balance is definitely not as as nice as we had before, but it hasn’t made any odds. What a waste of money! It’s just wasted everyone’s money. It’s literally changed nothing. Everyone’s wings still bend, which is half the bending, and everyone’s had to make new wings, and spend more money to make these.
“It’s just doesn’t make sense. It is what it is, and we just continue on. No, I wasn’t expecting… I drove on the simulator and it was pretty much exactly the same. A little bit more oversteering in the high speeds. My target is get to the podium, it has been long since I got onto the podium. So, it is a long way down to Turn 1 – the start George got last year – so I would be trying my best to start well. After that, it is just managing the tyres here which is challenging but like every weekend I am coming to the circuit it is new with the team, the car is so much different to what I drove in previous years, so through the weekend, I am having to adapt to this new driving style which is horrible, not enjoyable driving style, but I am adapting to these circuits but I love that each weekend.”
Leclerc: “I think that with two sets in Q3 it’s always easier. I probably would have found time. How much, I don’t know. Also I think there was a little bit more clouds. But I take full responsibility of the way the qualifying has gone. It was my choice, and in Q3 it was my choice to go in the middle when the team was pushing me to go to the end. I still wanted to have a plan B in case that one lap wasn’t going to plan a mistake or whatsoever, the chance to have a second lap. So that’s on me. And I also did all these choices in order to have better tyres for tomorrow’s race. If tomorrow we have a very bad race then I’ll have to take the responsibility of a bad weekend. If it goes well then I’m happy to take the credit of pushing the team one way, but only time will tell.
“Obviously P7 is a little bit below our expectations. Even with the choices I’ve made for qualifying I expect it to be a bit further up. But it’s the way it is. Now the choices are made and I hope that tomorrow it will pay off. I think we are doing steps in the right direction. I haven’t checked the whole lap to see if we are losing everything in the first sector or not. I’ll have a look at that but it felt a bit better. I mean I was a bit more optimistic after FP1 and FP2. I thought that the car was behaving pretty well, but unfortunately in qualifying it went back to normal. That’s a little bit what I was thinking of last night that we’ll only see when everybody goes flat out in quali and McLaren is still a step ahead.”
Russell: “We know that on a Saturday our car is anywhere between P2 and P5. That’s where it’s been all season and again today. It’s good we managed to get into Q3 on only two sets of tyres so we have a new soft tyre for tomorrow which is a valid race tyre – that’s a positive. We know that the car isn’t quick on Sundays. I think so. We also made a lot of changes to the car this weekend to try and improve the race pace so to see that we haven’t really hindered quali pace is a positive but then also it may mean it’s not going to improve the race pace. Tomorrow’s going to be an interesting one for us. We struggled a lot when it was the soft compound of tyres when it was hot but when it was the hard compound of tyres in Bahrain and it was hot we finished second there.
“When the tyres overheat by 10 degrees on a C4, it’s much more punishing than 10 degrees on a C1 tyre. That’s the only slight silver lining to give us a bit of hope for tomorrow. I just said, we have been P4 all weekend, so we could have been more aggressive with the strategy to try and get a slipstream in Turn 1, especially with Kimi having only one set of new tyre. He was never going to set a competitive lap on his old set even if he did a lap of life, the tyres were seventh tenths off. So, I just said we could have essentially work together to get a big result, in the end, the second lap was quick anyways but sometimes you got to put all on the line if you want to get those big results.”
The Top 10 has become a norm for certain drivers. Visa Cash App RB’s Isack Hadjar is one of them. Even though he missed on eighth place, the Frenchman was pleased to continue his Top 10 form in a tight midfield. His teammate Liam Lawson missed out on Q3 after sudden drop in pace in Q2.
The eighth place went to Alpie’s Pierre Gasly, who stepped up after bad practice and last couple of events. He was happy to make it in after some changes, but teammate Franco Colapinto was hugely disappointed due to a driveline issue which hampered his bid to make it in Q2.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso has also made a slight habbit of Q3 finishes in the ongoing triple-header. He ran out of sequence which dropped him to 10th, but he managed to eke out as much. He will be the lone from the team on Sunday after Lance Stroll pulled out due to wrist issues.
Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto surprised everyone with a 12th place finish, which is his best. The Brazilian got the updates on Saturday and managed to put in a good lap unlike Nico Hulkenberg, who made a mistake on his lap in Q1 which knocked him out of contention.
Haas’ Oliver Bearman apologised to Williams’ Alexander Albon for impeding, which was not investigated. The Brit said it was not his intention after he made it in Q2 unlike Esteban Ocon. The Thai complained on the radio as intentional and more or less stuck to his guns after the session.
Bearman left a dirty air which troubled Albon, who stated that Q3 was on if not for that minor issue. Teammate Carlos Sainz was compromised by Colapinto’s issue to be knocked out in Q1, as he had to pass several cars and couldn’t complete a proper warm-up.
Hadjar: “Honestly, I did a mighty lap in Q2 and then it was just about whether the other guys are going to wake up or not. I think I was always on the very limit for that and found the extra time with track improvement at the end. I think P8 would have been absolute maximum. I’m really happy with today’s result. It feels great to make it into Q3 again, that was almost the best we could have hoped for. At one point, we were worried we might not even make it out of Q1, so we can be proud of the job we did. The car felt good and kept improving with every lap. We made the right changes at the right time, and everything came together perfectly.”
Alonso: “It’s been a good weekend so far, and getting into Q3 shows we are in the fight for points. It’s the third consecutive Q3 for us so I’m pleased with that. We’ve made some progress since Miami where we were fighting at the back and Barcelona is always a true test. It shows our update package has given us a step forward. Hopefully we can finish the job tomorrow, especially here at home in front of this amazing support.”
Bortoleto: “I’m very happy with how qualifying went today—this has been the best result so far for me this season, and a very solid day overall. The upgrades we brought this weekend seem to be working, which is definitely encouraging: the team deserves it, as everyone has been working very hard. I’m glad that we are moving towards the right direction now, and that we have been able to show our potential today, but I’m also well aware that this is just Saturday: the main job is done tomorrow. I think tomorrow’s race is going to be a lot about tyre management, so it’ll be crucial to make the right calls and hopefully make a further step forward.”
Bearman: “We used all of our new tyres to get into Q2, and we managed that which is positive. We were probably faster than we expected, so I think if I had a new set in Q2 we would’ve been challenging to get into Q3 potentially. That’s a shame, but prior to the session I think we were quite clearly lacking performance to be where we just qualified, so I think we can be positive about that. It’s so hot here, I think it’s definitely going to change the way that we do things and I don’t know how the strategy will go, but we’ll try and have a good one tomorrow.
“Regarding moment with Alex, he was a bit close to me in Turn 12. The problem is that within four or five seconds gap you start to feel the dirty air which is a shame, it wasn’t my intention to be in his way, actually I was trying to get out of his way in the last two corners because that’s where he needed most in terms of the aero load, I obviously had no bad intentions, I am obviously sorry to Alex about that, I spoke to him as well.”
Albon: “I know it looks maybe dramatic, and it is dramatic in many ways, my reaction, but it’s more just the cars are so sensitive to dirty air. So the margins are so small and Q3 was there for the taking. I was slow in Turn 10 and Turn 12 compared to my previous laps, and that was enough for Q3. It’s genuine. I would have got into Q3 if I didn’t have the dirty air. It’s just that that’s the way it is. I feel like we haven’t gone into qualifying more compromised than we have this weekend. We obviously knew we were going to struggle this weekend, I think FP1 proved it. FP2, I was kind of also just relying a bit more on Carlos.
“Just because he had a bit more than four laps under his belt. We had some issues with electronics in our cars. We had to change that as well and we had to use three sets in Q1 so considering all the things that we’ve done…I’ve never been out of Q1 at this track, we got into Q2, we almost got into Q3 and I think realistically, if you just take the fact that we had only one set in Q2 we would have got through, so all good things. It still shows us we have weaknesses, and there’s still the DNA that we need to fix that clearly Barcelona exposes.”
Colapinto: “After how the car was feeling during the first runs in Q1, it is a pity we did not have a chance to attempt a final push lap and give ourselves a chance to progress. It felt like something broke on the car, which meant I could not pull away in the queue in the Pit Lane. Overall, the pace of the car felt good in that session and was the best it has felt all weekend, which is testament to the work the team has done to turn it around from where we were yesterday. From where we are starting, we need to look at what is possible with the strategy as it is quite difficult to overtake here at this track. Today was a tough one to take given how the car felt. But it sometimes happens, and we go through those highs and lows as a team and will look to bounce back tomorrow.”
Here’s news on Lance Stroll skipping Spanish GP
Here’s how F1 Spanish GP qualifying panned out
