Brazil - Sprint Qualifying

After a break of only two weeks, another sprint race is upon us, this one held in Brazil. And while the Fridays of a Grand Prix weekend can sometimes be boring in comparison to the exhilarating Saturdays and Sundays, this one was anything but. It not only provided us with exciting sprint qualifying but also with two breaking developments. The first was that Bearman would take over Magnussen’s sprint duties, as the driver did not feel well enough to get out on track today. It remains to be seen whether he will participate in tomorrow’s main qualifying. The second one could greatly impact the fight for the championship. Due to exchanging parts of his engine, Max Verstappen was announced to take a 5-place grid penalty for Sunday’s Grand Prix. With the tensions higher than ever, Brazil took us for the first dance of the weekend. 

The Ferraris were the first cars to drive out onto the track, but the times they set weren’t truly indicative of the ones were would see later down the line. It was through no fault of the drivers since with the track being covered with brand new tarmac before the race week, track evolution played a major part in the lap times. After all the other cars joined the two scarlet Ferraris, it was Piastri who came out on top. The efforts continued and with only two minutes left on the clock, all the drivers had enough time for one last attempt. They kept switching positions on the leaderboards, with each driver going just a bit quicker than the one before him. In the end, Ocon, Tsunoda, Stroll, Zhou, and surprisingly, Alonso did not make it into SQ2. The two-time world champion was knocked out by the rookie adored by fans from all over the Americas, Franco Colapinto. 

With clouds looming around the track, each run could end up being the one that mattered so the drivers had to put their all into every single corner and every single straight. Norris started off with an incredible lap, almost half a second quicker than the other drivers who set their laps at a similar time. Verstappen tried to catch up but came just short of getting past his main championship rival. Haas, Sauber, and VCARB all decided to go for the risky strategy of only sending their drivers at the very end of the session in hopes that their one lap on new softs would be enough to carry them into SQ3. It worked out particularly well for Bearman and Lawson who managed to find superb times that booked them a place in the last session of the day. SQ2 saw two surprising eliminations, with Perez not making it to the start in time to begin his last flying lap and Hamilton unable to set a time good enough to get him out of the elimination zone. Hulkenberg, Colapinto, and Bottas also did not do enough to avoid elimination. 

Albon and the two McLarens decided to go for an unpopular strategy and drive out on track as soon as SQ3 began. Out of the three of them, it was Norris who set the time to beat, being the first driver this weekend to get below a time of 1.9.00. And the McLarens were not done with their work for the day as, after a cooldown lap, they both went in for a second attempt. It worked out perfectly for the two. Piastri managed a time even quicker than Norris, securing a sprint pole, while his teammate stayed on the front row, his first time being more than enough to keep any of the other drivers from challenging him. The second row of tomorrow’s sprint will be made up of Leclerc and Verstappen. Bearman was the only driver out of the top ten not to have a time registered in SQ3 as his lap was deleted for exceeding track limits. He will begin the sprint in P10. 

Order of the grid:

1. Oscar Piastri

2. Lando Norris

3. Charles Leclerc

4. Max Verstappen 

5. Carlos Sainz

6. George Russel

7. Pierre Gasly

8. Liam Lawson

9. Alex Albon

10. Oliver Bearman

11. Lewis Hamilton

12. Nico Hulkenberg

13. Sergio Perez

14. Franco Colapinto

15. Valtteri Bottas

16. Fernando Alonso

17. Esteban Ocon 

18. Yuki Tsunoda

19. Lance Stroll

20. Zhou Guanyu