Spain - Qualifying

The first Grand Prix of the Spain-Austria-Great Britain triple header heated up before the qualifying even started. During the last practice sessions, multiple drivers reported impeding and a few even made light contact. Aston Martin’s Stroll got a reprimand from the stewards for an incident with Hamilton.

The teams occupying the top five spots in the constructor’s championship decided to spend the first minutes of the session in the garage and wait for more favorable track conditions, while RB and Sauber decided to get their laps in early. McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari, and Redbull dominated the session, with the final top three consisting of Hamilton, Leclerc, and Verstappen. The top teams all managed to keep both their drivers for Q2. Magnussen, Tsunoda, Ricciardo, Alban, and Sargeant made up the elimination zone. It was the first time this season that both Kick Sauber drivers managed to advance to the second part of qualifying. 

Q2 began with traffic in the pit lane. Stroll was the first to set the time to beat and the top teams quickly caught up to his time. The same drivers dominated the session and the differences between them were smaller than ever. At some point, Sainz and Norris were separated by only 0,002 seconds but this time, it was Verstappen who came out on top. Bottas, Hulkenberg, Zhou, and Stroll did not make it into Q3. Neither did one of the home favourites; Fernando Alonso.

In Q3, it was the Red Bulls who set the times to beat. And as cars battled on track, tensions rose in the Mercedes garage when Russel complained about his teammate. He was told that the matter would be resolved after the session. With only a few minutes left till the end, all the cars went out for one last push lap. It began disastrously for Piastri who went off track and into gravel, securing a spot at the very bottom of the top ten. The Ferraris both set good times but were beaten by the two Mercedes, Verstappen, and Norris. It seemed that the Red Bull driver would take yet another pole, but Lando Norris put together a near-perfect lap and managed to beat him. It is the driver’s second career pole. 

Order of the grid:

1. Lando Norris

2. Max Verstappen

3. Lewis Hamilton

4. George Russel

5. Charles Leclerc

6. Carlos Sainz

7. Pierre Gasly

8. Sergio Perez

9. Esteban Ocon

10. Oscar Piastri

11. Fernando Alonso

12. Valtteri Bottas

13. Nico Hulkenberg

14. Lance Stroll

15. Zhou Guanyu

16. Kevin Magnussen

17. Yuki Tsunoda

18. Daniel Ricciardo

19. Alex Albon

20. Logan Sargeant