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It is the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton that will start tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix in pole position, ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen.
Williams' Nicholas Latifi set the first time in Q1, with a time of 1.19:231 as he complained of the circuit being slippery
Verstappen initially went quickest of the frontrunners, as both Mercedes of Bottas pushed the Dutchman down to third. The two Racing Point cars of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll looked quick, as they went second and third to go ahead of Verstappen in the standings.
Alfa Romeo's Antionio Giovinazzi went wide at the final corner as he tried to get out of the bottom five, while Daniil Kvyat and Kevin Magnussen were put under investigation for an incident at turn 2.
Kimi Raikkonen got into Q2 for the first time this season, as both Haas and Williams were out at the end of Q1.
Hamilton and Bottas traded times in the opening minutes of Q2, with Hamilton setting a time of 1:16.013 to go quickest in the opening of the session.
Perez was on a flyer before a slip of traction coming through turn ten, leaving him fifth, while Carlos Sainz's time was good enough for fourth on the first run.
Perez and Stroll will start fourth and fifth, as Alexander Albon and Sainz qualified in sixth and seventh.
Sebastian Vettel once again missed out on Q3, getting knocked out by Pierre Gasly by just two milliseconds, as Raikkonen managed to qualify fourteenth and ahead of the Renault of Esteban Ocon.
The two Racing Point cars were first out on track to start Q3 with Perez ahead of Stroll, as Hamilton took provisional pole from teammate Bottas by a tenth of a second.
Charles Leclerc reported strange behaviour from his power unit leaving the pits for his final run in Q3. Bottas just missed out on pole, giving the front spot to Hamilton.
Eighth and ninth went to Lando Norris and Leclerc, while Gasly qualified in tenth.
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
Replies (5)
Login to replyf1ski
Posts: 726
No party mode benefit. Ferrari no difference to speak of q2q3. Mb 0.5 sec faster .25 for rbr and the rest. Perhaps that’s the Ferrari penalty no party mode and fewer race modes.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I don't really expect an amazing race based on this. Hoping for hot race though.
Snooky
Posts: 121
I think we can, Merc cars are notorious for suffering when following other cars so They set up too heavily for quali to make sure they are out in front in clean air. It’s clear this has compromised their races where they are too hard on the tyres. Max will push them again.
All I keep thinking is what a great championship this would be without merc and redbull. The battle behind is great
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
It would, but I think the budget cap can amend that to some extent. Ferrari will certainly not be able to compensate for clumsyness with money from now on, and RB and Merc' won't be able to spend silly high sums of cash either from then on. If not, I sadly think we are seeing more and more reasons for why BoP in F1 might not be a shabby idea.
Snooky
Posts: 121
I’m not certain the budget cap will, at least to start with. I can see the big 3 and maybe even Renault spending a lot money in development already ahead of the restrictions.
BoP is hard to get right, it’s used in WEC and it took years to get right in LMP1, and in the GTE categories the teams were able to abuse it and sandbag heavily before the race so that they got favourable BoP during the race