The Saturday in F1 US GP was hectic considering the sprint race and main qualifying as Red Bull and McLaren went head-to-head with Ferrari in the mix.
It was a hectic F1 US GP sprint race on Saturday, followed by a close main qualifying. While Red Bull’s Max Verstappen managed to control the sprint, he might have taken pole as well until the late off for Mercedes’ George Russell, which didn’t give an improvement chance to anyone.
He had to settle for second but in a good place behind McLaren’s Lando Norris, who found pace and confidence in Q3 to set one of his best laps of his career. He had a relatively tougher sprint after losing out to Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz on the last lap which cost him couple of points to Verstappen.
Sainz himself had a better sprint and even main qualifying after fights against Charles Leclerc, Russell and Norris. The one with his teammate raised questions but he did not agree when said that it hampered the team’s chances to eventually beat Verstappen in the sprint.
Leclerc noted that there were no discussions on the team order front, and so he expects the racing to continue on. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, meanwhile, managed to claw back in Q3 along with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, but track limits caught him out as he revealed that he didn’t get the updated floor to run.
The real drop came for Mercedes where Lewis Hamilton was knocked out in Q1 after suspension issue in sprint hampered his drive. The team managed to fix the issue but the balance was lost, as Russell pushed hard which led to his crash. He revealed that teammate offered his updates amid parts shortage.
Norris: “It was the best of probably my career, I think. Yeah, it was just a very nice lap. I kind of set the bar too high because on my second lap, I was like, ‘guys, I don’t think I’m going to improve much here’. So yeah, I mean, I got everything out of the car. We changed a good amount from the Sprint race into quali today now and definitely took a step forward. But man, I was still struggling a lot. So I just knew I had to risk a little bit more and give it that little extra. And it just came together perfectly. But it was definitely not a lap I could have repeated. So I’m very happy because I really wasn’t expecting to be here today. I mean, I was just pushing everywhere, but yesterday in quali… I probably did what Max did in his first [run]. As soon as you miss the apex, you have to give up the corner because you’re going to go off. It’s basically a guarantee. It’s a hard one to get right. You have to time it perfectly. Turn in too early, hit the kerb. Too late, you miss it and you’re off. But it’s a corner, again, where in general we’ve been a bit down to Red Bull. Red Bull are very quick in these faster corners. And as one of them, I just had to risk that a little bit more. It was close, it was on the edge. But it’s what I needed today. Quite simple. I think the gap was 0.03, I think, to Max. And without some of these little bits where maybe some people didn’t use all of the track on that kind of thing, today I had to and I needed to, and it got me pole. My performance engineer will be very happy with me.
“Regarding sprint, it was a good start, a good Turn 1, which was nice to have, and immediately behind Max. And it was pretty straightforward from that point onwards. George was pushing a lot in the beginning of the race, clearly a bit too much, and paid the price. I don’t know, for me, it was a bit like, I didn’t think I would ever be able to get Max. We’ve been struggling a bit all weekend, so my chances of getting Max were tough, but I did the best I could to manage my tyres and things like that. But at the end of the race, the Ferraris were another level comparing to us. So I did my best to try to hold on, but there was pretty much zero chance I would ever hold on to second place today. So happy, I mean, from fourth, happy we moved up. We put up a good fight, but we just don’t have the pace this weekend. So, yeah, maybe some changes to make into qualifying and for the race tomorrow. But we’re not on the same level as, I think maybe similar to Max, but the Ferraris we are quite a chunk behind. I think no matter what I would have done, I think Carlos was coming past. My tyres were completely finished by the end. So, yeah, one thing, I can just not defend and let him go up the inside and he gets me that way, or I defend and just put too much stress on the tyres. You have to be so delicate with everything and it was just too easy to go over the limit, so I paid the price that way. Actually, I almost think the fact he got me there was potentially a better thing because I could have a good DRS on him and had a bit of a gap to Charles. So yeah, not necessarily a bad thing that he actually got me that early in the lap.”
Verstappen: “I mean, I was a good amount up, but already my first lap in Q3, I missed Turn 19. So I don’t know what happened there. I just turned in, probably a bit late, tried to carry a bit more speed. But then, of course, when you’re late, you end up really wide. So I had to downshift one more time. So I lost quite a bit of lap time there. That would have already been enough for pole. So I knew that the second lap, you know, there was time to find, for free, but never really got to that corner. So, I mean, that happens, you know, in qualifying, it’s not always in your control. I think in general, though, for us, this whole weekend so far has been a lot more positive. We could at least fight for pole and that has been a while. Regarding sprint, I’m happy.
“Yeah, it’s been, of course, quite a few races where it was more like just looking behind, never really being able to attack. And now, finally, the car definitely had just more performance. I could push a bit harder. So, yeah, very, very happy with today. I mean, looking at the whole race, I think Ferrari was also very quick. But for us, this was already much, much better. It’s difficult to say about the race. I mean, I think over the whole race since today, I think Ferrari was very fast. From our side, yeah, we’ll look into things to improve. Going into qualifying, but it’s a bit difficult to tell at the moment how we would be on full fuel.”
Sainz: “Definitely, obviously everyone can say the same, no? Lando deserves to be on pole. Max deserves to be second. I deserve to be third because they did a better job in the first run. But that second lap, I don’t know what changed, if it was a lower track temp or what but the car came alive and we were coming with a very fast lap. To be in the ballpark with these two guys, whether to beat them or not, I don’t know but, yeah, to be in the ballpark, it’s a bit of a shame. But we trust that we can hopefully get them tomorrow in the race pace because, yeah, the sprint was strong and the car even in qualifying took a step compared to yesterday. So, happy with the progress made so far. And also, I really enjoyed the sprint. Obviously this year we have a car that allows us to move forward in the race. Last year it was a bit like Max was saying, looking in the mirrors, in the Sprints, in the races. And this year the car tends to come alive on the race and immediately after lap one I saw we had a good pace and I could keep up with the guys in front and we went racing. It was some exciting battles, first with Charles. I remember at some point thinking, ‘OK, we’re having fun even here’, because I was overtaking him on the inside. He was doing the switch back on the inside on the exits, and it was quite fun. Then we got George, and towards the end I thought Lando was going to be tricky to get, but we just made it two laps to the end, and on the last lap I could move into Turn 1.
“First of all, I don’t agree with your comment [that my fight with Leclerc derailed chances to catch Verstappen]. I think it’s a Sprint, and I think everyone races hard from the beginning to the end. And regarding the second one, obviously, yes, the main race is a much longer race where I think everyone tends to play a bit longer game with tyre management and everything. And everyone applies all the lessons learned from the Sprint. So everyone knows how to manage the tires better, where to manage them, et cetera, and all. So, yeah, it will be a matter of putting ourselves in a position to try and win again. And again, like everything else, a lot is dictated by the start, by the first lap, and you never know where you’re going to end there. So you cannot go into a race with a super clear plan in your head because normally that plan after one corner changes completely because of that start or that Turn 1. So let’s see. I’m confident that if we do a good job together, for sure we can fight with these two guys, whether we can beat them starting behind them, that’s another thing. It’s never easy to overtake in Formula 1 and never easy to, especially the McLaren and Red Bull.”
Leclerc: “Improved, yes. But, honestly, [it] wouldn’t have changed a lot. Would have been either P3 or P4. With Carlos it would have been close in the last sector, but it doesn’t change anything for the team. Neither of us were capable of fighting with the top two, they were too fast. But that’s what we expected as a team, the first sector in qualifying today and yesterday. We knew we have a limitation in our car at the moment, and none of the set-up options we thought of would cure that issue. In the race, we have a lot less of that issue. That’s why I’m more optimistic for tomorrow’s race. The soft felt a little bit better. The issues were still there. But maybe looked like others have changed philosophy of car set-up and started to struggle in the first sector like us, because the gap is not as big as yesterday in that particular sector. So, it probably means tomorrow they’ll also be doing a step forward in the race. But let’s wait and see. There was no particular discussion [about sprint fight with Sainz], so I don’t think we’ll approach it differently.”
Russell: “All season, when the car is in the sweet spot, we are fighting for poles and wins. Yesterday, we were both fighting for pole and today we were both almost out in Q1. I really pushed it on that last lap, and ultimately, trying to find performance that wasn’t there and paid the price. And I’m really just disappointed with myself, because everyone’s worked so hard to bring the upgrades. Now that is in the bin. We don’t have the answers because we keep finding ourselves in this position. It is how the car is interacting with the tyres. The temperature, small changes; the wind, small changes. But it has been the story of the season, old upgrades, new upgrades. Either we’re there or we’re half a second/six tenths off. It definitely feel as good but not the difference that we saw yesterday, things were coming so easily and today we are not. Right now, the concern is about the bits. We will have to revert on the upgrades. Lewis has kindly offered his ones, but we’re not going to swap. So I don’t know what’s going to be happening now, but that’s the biggest concern.”
Hamilton: “It’s been pretty terrible. The car felt great yesterday, so obviously, I came really optimistic for today. Something failed in the front suspension literally as we pulled away from the line for the formation lap, and I had that through the race. They figured that out, they changed the corner, and it didn’t feel any good. It just felt like a mess, obviously. I don’t know about the result, this shouldn’t happen, it is obviously not planned but. I was about to qualify for pole yesterday, so it’s not a mental problem. When the suspension is failing or breaking, and things aren’t coming together– today, honestly, I can’t explain it. You have to ask the team what happened with the suspension. But all I know is that the guys are working as hard as they can. They did the change. Any performance step is positive, yesterday we were quick and I don’t know where that went, we will keep pushing. There will be a lot going on, but I mean, I started in karts, in a pretty bad go-kart, and I could come through the field, so we’ll see how we do.”
The drop for Perez and Hamilton allowed ins for certain drivers in the Top 10 which included Haas’ Kevin Magnussen, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly. The surprise of the lot was most certainly Gasly, whose team isn’t in the position to be in Q3.
But the updates have seemingly worked well to start with as he ended up as best of the rest behind the Top 4 teams. His teammate Esteban Ocon was out in Q1 but was happy with the sprint race per se. At Haas, both felt good with the car with Magnussen in the Top 10.
Nico Hulkenberg, though, made a small error in Turn 1 which cost him eventually. It wasn’t so good for the Williams pair of Alexander Albon and Franco Colapinto who were knocked out in Q1, where the Argentine thought the set-up changes from sprint didn’t work for him.
The Thai was left surprised with the pace drop, as Kick Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas noted of his brakes catching fire at the end of the sprint. The fight between Visa Cash App RB’s Liam Lawson and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso continued on from the sprint race to qualifying.
The Spaniard wasn’t happy with the Kiwi’s move in the sprint which cost them places to Ocon. He was seen discussing in the parc ferme and apparently was to block Lawson in qualifying which he seemingly did. Alonso played down the thing while stressing on unnecessary fight.
Magnussen: “I got a poor start, and also being on the inside didn’t help, so I lost two positions. Afterwards, we were racing and spent quite a bit of time behind Yuki, so I lost a bit of my tyre there but nonetheless we did alright in the end. All in all it was a great team performance; it’s three points and It’s great to get them on Saturday. The car felt okay in qualifying but unfortunately my laps in Q2 were not great, not clean and both times I got caught off guard at Turn 1. It’s a nasty one when you start sliding there as you lose a lot of time, so that’s the cause of why I got knocked out in Q2. I think the performance is there, that’s not the issue, so that’s very promising and tomorrow we just need to stay clean and do a good job.”
Gasly: “It’s a fantastic surprise. I’m very happy because we made quite a lot of changes after the sprint. And on a sprint weekend, it’s not easy because you don’t have much time to actually figure out, especially when you’ve got a new package and new parts on the car, you don’t have much time to understand or try things and we made quite a few changes setup wise and the car was just in a much better place – got more potential, more drivable, more controllable – was reacting well to my driving and very pleased, it was a lot more enjoyable. I manage to put some good laps in Q1, Q2 and Q3, so very happy for the guys, to see that the parts have some good potential.”
Lawson: “Q1 pace was very strong for us, we made some positive changes to the car from yesterday and it’s great to have that performance. The focus was to get through to Q1 and then help get Yuki into Q3, slip streaming him down the straights. The second lap worked quite well, but it just wasn’t enough, which was a shame because he was so close. It’s probably going to be a tricky race, it’s difficult to overtake despite the long DRS zones, you need a clear pace advantage, especially if it’s a DRS train. As for Fernando, I don’t know, he said he would screw me, and I guess he kept his word. He was really upset, I’m not sure why. We were racing for P16 and I don’t know why he was so upset. Yeah, I don’t know. It is what it is. Hopefully he can get over it and we’ll move forward. Just out of the box playing games. It is what it is, it’s part of it – it doesn’t bother me. I understand he had a pretty horrible race so I can understand why he’s upset. But if I did anything wrong I’d have got a penalty. So, yeah…I don’t think we have a rivalry! We just had an incident in the race, and we can just get over it and move forward.”
Alonso: “It’s a good result for us to finish in eighth position in today’s Qualifying. We’ve not been comfortable with the car and have made set-up changes. I think the changes we made after the Sprint have helped and we found more performance which is encouraging. It’s still challenging to drive the car, but this result hopefully allows us to score some points tomorrow. There are some fast cars starting behind us so the top ten will be a good battle tomorrow. Regarding the start in qualifying? What happened in qualifying? Ah, well, because I had the scrubbed set, I was not really into a timed lap, so I didn’t want to lose more time. And I think it didn’t change too much to him. But today, in the sprint, we fought very, very hard. He fought very hard, in my opinion, for 16th, 17th. But nothing we can do.
“And as long as one of the two cars lifts off, there is never an accident. So it was my case today. Everyone on track is behaving as he wants, and for me, today was unnecessary. Everyone can have different opinions. I’m okay with that. It’s 24 races, so you meet somewhere in the journey. On the straight, I think we nearly crashed, like I did with Lance two years ago, at 300-something [km/h], and then the way he squeezed, out of the corners, you know, to the track limit itself. You know, in lap one out of 11. But as I said, I don’t want to make a big thing. There’s, of course, no penalty when someone lifts off in 16/17 – that was probably the biggest surprise.”
Albon: “Obviously, we’ve been trying to recover from yesterday. I had the opportunity during the Sprint to practice and test different setups for a race run with varying levels of downforce, but I didn’t really like it. Ahead of Qualifying, we kept some of the changes while reverting to part of the original setup. Regarding Qualifying, it was honestly quite surprising. The biggest issue we faced was that I came out of the pit lane maybe a lap earlier than everyone else, so when we started our push lap, about nine cars had just come out. I was overtaking a car almost every corner, and there was a lot of dirty air, which makes a big difference here. I’ve been struggling with the car and don’t feel in rhythm with it, and the solutions we’ve tried aren’t working, so we need to dig deeper to figure out what’s going on. Tomorrow, we’ll see what we can do with our strategy and hope for the best.”
Bottas: “First of all, I want to thank the mechanics who worked really hard to get the car ready in time for qualifying. We experienced an issue with the brakes in the final laps of the Sprint, and fixing that kept the crew busy, so to be even in the session was an achievement. Qualifying was challenging, as we worked to maximise the learnings from the sprint race. We made some positive setup changes that seem to have brought us closer to the competition in terms of single-lap performance. I’m feeling optimistic that these setup improvements will translate to better race pace tomorrow compared to what we saw today. Overall, it’s been an important learning experience, and I’m hopeful we can build on these learnings to deliver a stronger performance tomorrow.”
Here’s how F1 US GP qualifying panned out
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