QUALIFYING
Even after Max Verstappen had topped all three practice sessions, an air of inevitability remained. Mercedes had never been defeated in a season-opening qualifying session in the turbo hybrid era, and, thanks to the single engine mode rules not applying until qualifying, it remained possible that the Black Arrows would rescue its record.
Trepidation increased in Q1 when Verstappen, who topped the segment, urgently asked his team to check his floor for possible damage after clattering the Turn 2 exit kerbs. Replays revealed pieces of carbon-fibre flying off the RB16B on the following straight and the team reckoned the damage cost him a tenth of a second per lap thereafter.
Mercedes had its opening and Lewis Hamilton duly drove right through it in Q2, ending up four places ahead of Verstappen. But F1’s Q2 starting tyre rules distort the picture, as several drivers – including the eventual qualifying top three – attempted to get through on the medium tyres.
Sergio Perez and Yuki Tsunoda could not do enough, the latter blaming a “completely strange” feeling on the harder rubber for his fall from a remarkable Q1 P2 to a P13 grid spot.
But with the switch back to softs in Q3 came Verstappen’s moment and post-2013 era F1 history. After Hamilton had taken provisional pole with a 1m29.549s first run, he edged 0.023s ahead. On the second run, Verstappen was emphatic, sweeping all three sectors for a fourth F1 pole by 0.388s.
Explaining the difference between the two Q3 laps, Verstappen said: “I just had a few corners where I had a bit of loss of grip and then you run too wide and have less traction [on the first lap]. It’s just tidying those things up – and that helped a lot. This track is super-sensitive to how the tyres behave anyway – like you can gain or lose a lot of lap time, especially when the wind is in the direction it was [a main straight headwind].”
Behind Verstappen, Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas came a charging Charles Leclerc, who only had one Q3 run due to a lack of new soft rubber. Pierre Gasly was an excellent fifth, while Fernando Alonso marked his F1 return with his highest grid spot (ninth) since the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix.
George Russell escaped Q1 for the 10th time since the start of 2020, sacrificing new rubber for Q2 by doing an aborted run to fully understand the wind conditions at the start of qualifying because of his car’s vulnerability to gusts.
“I HAD A BIT OF LOSS OF GRIP, THEN YOU RUN TOO WIDE AND HAVE LESS TRACTION”