F1 Spanish GP, Sat: McLaren supreme; Alpine flourishes & more

The Saturday in F1 Spanish GP was tight as expected as McLaren shelved Red Bull charge, while Alpine continued its Top 10 run.

The Saturday in F1 Spanish GP at Barcelona was another close fight at the front but it left out Ferrari in it with the likes of Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes right in it. The honour went to McLaren’s Lando Norris who beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by 0.020s.

It was an exciting finish as Norris extracted as much to beat Verstappen, who felt improvements were made throughout the weekend but it was not enough. They expected more but it didn’t happen with Sergio Perez too at the fag end of the Top 10.

He didn’t get his balance right and with the penalty, he will have to start outside the Top 10. Norris’ teammate Oscar Piastri gained a place despite not setting a lap time after track limits and gravel moment ruined both his quick laps in Q3.

He doesn’t know why he had such moments but didn’t think the update had anything to do with it. Mercedes, meanwhile, won the battle against the Ferrari pair, with Lewis Hamilton finally beating George Russell in a qualifying battle to end up third.

Both the Brits felt good with their pace but are wary of the Ferrari duo behind. Charles Leclerc while explaining what happened in FP3, noted the lack of pace after practice struggles. In fact, Carlos Sainz pointed it towards bouncing in high-speed corners.

This will affect their race pace as well with a win fight unlikely considering the race pace of Red Bull and McLaren along with Mercedes. There was a distance between the Top 4 teams and others which included Aston Martin, who ended up in Q2 with both its cars.

Norris: “It feels great, yeah. I mean, poles always feel good, and it’s the second one in my career. I mean, I’ve had two Sprint race poles, but I don’t regard that at all as a pole position. So, yeah, this is the second one of my career. It’s been a while since Sochi, all the way back then, so… Yeah, it feels great. I mean, it was an amazing lap. Honestly, it was my best lap by a long way. I pretty much put the whole lap together, so I got a nice slipstream. I think probably my best corner around the lap, every single part of it put together. Max was a bit ahead in Q1, Q2. I knew I had to kind of do something perfect in Q3 to do it. And that’s exactly what I did. So I’m pretty happy that I managed to pull off probably my best lap that I’ve done probably ever. I don’t have any concerns about the race. I mean I’m excited. It’s a long run down to Turn 1. It’s probably one of the places you don’t want to start on pole, but it’s an opportunity for us to go out and try and win a race you know. We’ve not done loads of long running.

“We’ve done a bit and I think we were close, as it always has been. I think tomorrow is not like this car is way quicker. I  think between Mercedes, ourselves, Red Bull, Ferrari, there’s eight cars that could have probably been on pole today and that have a chance of probably winning the race tomorrow. So it’s about making the least mistakes, similar to today, and just trying to execute another good race that we normally do. I hope I can have just a good start and kind of control it from there. But I’m sure the whole race I’m going to be under pressure and going to have to make those kind of calls.

“But, yeah, I mean, I look forward to it. I look forward to racing against anyone. And probably Max is the guy on the track that I’ve raced the least, just because he’s always been too far ahead. Yeah, happy to now kind of be there and I’m sure whether I’m first or second tomorrow coming out of Turn 1, it’s going to be a fight till pretty much the end of the race. So I’m excited. I look forward to it. I’ve not had many opportunities to do so. When I have, he’s normally been about a second lap quicker, but that’s not the case anymore. So yeah, I’m excited to just race against him and have some fun.”

Verstappen: “The lap itself was good. I mean, I even also got a tow to Turn 1. I think in general, when you look at it, the whole of qualifying was just miles better than practice for me. I always felt like the car was not really connected in all the free practice sessions. So when I went into qualifying, it just clicked much better. And I think in the very high speed, we were particularly strong around the laps, with Turns 3, 9, and the last corner, which were quite comfortably flat. But I guess in a way probably that’s why we were not improving that much in the final few runs because those corners are flat, so there’s nothing to gain, and then there are not that many corners left around the track. So I did make my gains but I probably was already flat where maybe Lando wasn’t flat before and then you just lose out a little bit with that. So maybe a bit too draggy for qualifying, looking back at it, But that’s something that is always very easy to say afterwards because the whole of the weekend we were just sliding around too much and now probably it was finally hooked up and you probably would have turned down the wing a little bit, but that’s how it goes.

“We had no issues from what we’ve experienced in the last few weeks, but it took a bit of fine-tuning and to get the car quick, I would say. But I don’t feel like it’s always you know just fine-tuning. Sometimes also it just seems like we are lacking a bit of pace. So we need to yeah just try and be more competitive. I would always want to start first. It’s a bit easier to defend like that. I think our top speeds are all quite similarish and we don’t have DRS, of course, into Turn 1 with the start. So again, it all depends on how good your start is going to be. It is such a long race, so many laps that you have to do on these tyres around here that anything can happen. For sure I would like to win tomorrow, naturally. I think it’s still a bit unknown where we are, like all of us, in terms of pure pace in the long runs. I’m hoping, of course, it’s going to be all very close, like it has been in the last few races. And I think, yeah, with the high deg around here as well, you need to really look after your tyres. I don’t know, of course, in what state the track will be as well tomorrow with potential rain, of course, overnight and in the morning. So all these kind of things, of course, come into play.”

Hamilton: “Three tenths off. Yeah, so it’s a pretty big chunk. For a track like this, it’s not too bad. I think, as I said, through the lap, there’s a little bit of time, I think. It probably could have been two tenths, but still they have a slight advantage. But for us to be that close on the track like this is a real good showing that we’re going in the right direction. As I said, we’ve got some improvements that we need to bring over the next few races in order for us to be properly in range of those guys. I think the bigger concern probably is the Ferraris behind us. Obviously, we were all within half a tenth, I think, from third to fifth. I think it was fifth or sixth. And they had an upgrade this weekend, so I think their long pace look quite strong. So I think it’s more working together as a team and trying to hold position at least. If we happen to have more pace available to us and we’re able to hold on to these guys, then it’s game on. But we really won’t know until tomorrow. And degradation is always the key here. And when you have a really good rear end, you can save your balance, but you can save the rear tyres. So that’s going to be key for tomorrow.”

Leclerc: “My version is very simple. Lando exited the pit lane and I was behind on a push lap then when he aborted I also aborted it. I braked to be alongside him and I misjudged it. On the right I didn’t want to impede either the cars behind and so I was a bit in the middle by being frustrated and looking in a mirror to try not to impede and we collided but it was a misunderstanding more than anything. You’re always frustrated when you do that but you never want to touch. Obviously in FP3, that’s the last thing you want to do, to damage the car, my car first of all, because I’ve got qualifying right after so it’s never the goal. I’ve had a very difficult time until quali really, until FP3 I would say. FP1 and FP2 were extremely difficult for me.

“FP1, we had the old package, we had to obviously do the compare between the two cars which was needed. In FP2, the car felt really out of place and the balance was really struggling. Today we changed basically, not everything, but a lot of things in the car. In FP3, I felt straight away much more at ease. However, the pace is just not there. I’m happy in a way of the progress with the feeling that I’ve had from yesterday to today, which I think will pay off in the race. But I’m not happy and I’m disappointed with the pace of the car today in qualifying because we are further away than what we had anticipated.”

Piastri: “It wasn’t looking amazing. It certainly wasn’t going to be pole. I don’t feel like I threw away that much of a result. Honestly, I think it would have been maybe P7 or P8 at best. So I don’t feel like I’ve made a mistake that’s caused a big result. Just not had the pace which is obviously not ideal. But I just need to understand why that’s been the case. It’s just not been very natural all weekend. In the last four or five races, from the first session of practice, I’ve been able to be comfortable with the car and then push on from there and this weekend it’s just not been coming. Today it’s just not clicked for some reason. Since we put the upgrades on, half of them in Miami and then the full set at Imola, it’s been really good to drive and at Imola in particular felt very, very comfy from lap one and the car’s not changed since then. This weekend, for whatever reason, has been more difficult so nothing to do with the upgrades just yet not clicked.”

Russell: “Lewis was quite a long way ahead of me, but I think we both had our eyes on the same driver for a slipstream opening the lap. I was just focusing on my mirrors not to impede Ocon and next time I looked it up Lewis was right in front of me trying to take the tow from Ocon. Obviously, we’re in the moment and when you’re trying to get everything [right], you’re a bit hotheaded. But nothing gained, nothing lost and there was nothing more to it. Two milliseconds is the biggest gap I’ve had for the last four races to a driver around me, so it’s crazy to think that. Taking the positives as a team, we’re in the mix. Lando did a really great lap. I don’t think Lewis and I really put it together perfectly. I felt like there was maybe two-tenths on the table, but not the gap that we saw to pole. But nevertheless, we are P3 and P4, and in a great place to fight for a win tomorrow.”

Alonso: “It was very close in Qualifying today with just a few tenths between several cars. We were slightly pessimistic heading into the session, so I think we have to be quite pleased with tenth position for tomorrow’s race following Sergio’s [Perez] penalty. The support from the home fans has been amazing and I’m very thankful for this. While we would love to be fighting for something more, we’ll see what we can do tomorrow starting inside the top ten and try to maximise our race to score some points.”

The extravagant F1 weekend for Alpine continued as both Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon made it inside the Top 10, much to everyone’s surprise. Despite no updates, they landed themselves in a good position to score points in a tricky lower order fight.

To add to it, their direct competition like Visa Cash App RB, Haas and Williams, all struggled. Even though they brought updates, it wasn’t enough for the former. Both Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda felt good with the car, but were surprise with the results.

They were both knocked out in Q1 as did the Williams pair of Alexander Albon and Logan Sargeant. The American got the spec that the Thai is running, but post-qualifying he revealed that it is still not 100% and that he was suffering due to the floor.

Haas were in two situation with Nico Hulkenberg extracting the maximum in Q2, but Kevin Magnussen couldn’t make it out of Q1. But both the Stake F1 Team cars of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu did so, with the Chinese driver feeling happy with his car.

Gasly: “It’s a positive team result today with both cars in Q3 for the first time this season. We knew yesterday during Practice that there were some good signs but we were slightly cautious as we did not fully know the performance of others. Now, in seventh place, we confirmed that we were competitive and we ended just one and a half tenths from the top three. We’ve had difficult moments this year, which we have and will continue to learn from, and it is equally as important for us to understand why we’ve had an increase in performance level like today. The car felt good, I felt like we maximised everything and there are always things we can improve. Tomorrow will be a challenging race and it looks like the conditions could be different again. We have put ourselves in a great position to secure another good team result.”

Guanyu: “It feels really good to have made it back into Q2 today but, while this is a good result, it’s equally important for me that the feeling in the car and my confidence are back. We knew that getting out of Q2 might be tough since we already used a new set of tyres in Q1, forcing us to start on used softs before switching to a new set., but we can’t complain with the final outcome. We took a step back and made a bit of a reset this weekend: the last few races had been tough, so we opted for some significant changes, including swapping my chassis – and it feels like things are coming together much better now. I am also happy to see that we have made a step forward and have been much quicker as a team this weekend: we’ll continue working hard to turn these better grid positions into a good result tomorrow, even though we know that the top ten looks very strong at the moment.”

Hulkenberg: “I feel like I left nothing out there, produced some clean laps, and I think this was our ultimate pace, that’s the picture today. The car has been okay, but also tricky at times, but we still need to work on the high-speed balance, and general grip. I think on high fuel, all the weaknesses do get exposed a lot more, but everyone is in the same boat. I expect a close race tomorrow and probably some DRS trains.”

Sargeant: “Unfortunately, the cars weren’t the same spec in the end. The floors that we’ve brought are underperforming which is a shame. We’ve been working hard all weekend by trying to change things to get the floors to work as they should. It was slightly better in Qualifying than it was in FP3. We need to understand the problem and get it fixed for the future. It’s not great for me or the team and none of us want to be in this position. We’ll keep fighting no matter the situation.”

Ricciardo: “I’d like to think there’s still a bit more on the package to figure out, so that’s something we’ll keep doing but, on the flip side, I do feel like we were much more out of balance and actually today, in quali, the car felt much more together. I actually didn’t think the car felt too bad in quali. Of course, there are some corners where you feel it should be flat there or whatever, so you know you may be still missing a bit of load but in general it was I felt much better than yesterday. I haven’t spoken to Yuki yet but I don’t think he was too unhappy with how the car felt. I think we’re just not that quick and normally, you put three sets in Q1… it never guarantees you a spot in Q2, but it gives you a much better chance and obviously, to still not make it I think it just shows that we just at the moment don’t have the pace with this current config so we’ll keep chipping away. Yesterday felt like we were still trying to fight it a little bit so we did make some bigger changes overnight.

“So we probably haven’t perfected it right now and maybe that’s the encouraging thing but I feel like we did do a good job overnight to get the car in a better place. So from a feeling, it felt better today. I had more comfort and confidence in it but unfortunately on this thing, the stopwatch, we’re still where we were yesterday. With the floors, when you get a new floor, obviously that’s where these cars are so powerful in terms of the load and the aero characteristics, so it’s just trying to get on top of that. As I said, I felt like we made a good step today, but when Pierre told me P18, I didn’t really have anything to say on the radio because I was honestly quite surprised. I knew we’re not going to be at P10, but I honestly thought that would have been good enough for Q2.”

Here’s Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri on fire

Here’s link to a F1 Discord channel, join in to interact