The qualifying session got under way at the Imola circuit for the 2022 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and there was an interesting mix of tyres out there: Mercedes opted for intermediates, while the Alfa Romeos were among cars to go straight on slicks. There were six drivers on slick tyres to start the session – Vettel, Stroll, Zhou, Bottas, Ocon and Alonso. So Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo and Alpine were all comfortable enough.
Ferrari come out on the soft tyres, but there immediately was a red flag as the back of Alex Albon’s car caught fire. The fire seemed to have put itself out as Albon made his way round the rest of the lap to get back to the pits. However, the debris that has fallen from his car meant there was a clean-up job. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were among ten cars who did not get the chance to set times before Alex Albon’s incident.
That stoppage only made the Imola track more dry and so every driver unsurprisingly came out on the soft tyres. The Ferrari cars shot to the top of the timesheets and their times kept getting quicker and quicker as the session progressed. Charles Leclerc improved to a 1:19.545, which was a hundredth of a second faster than his team-mate Carlos Sainz. It was interesting to see Lewis Hamilton made it through to Q2 by 0.004s ahead of Yuki Tsunoda, with both AlphaTauri cars surprisingly eliminated. 17th was a big surprise for Pierre Gasly.
The 15-minute Q2 segment was under way – and Charles Leclerc was told that there will be time for one timed lap before rain. Unfortunately for Ferrari, Carlos Sainz made a mistake on his second run in Q2 and crashed out, putting an end to his qualifying session. A big opportunity missed for the Spanish driver, who would have had a good chance of starting from the front row tomorrow. Now Carlos will try to make up some places in the Sprint Race on Saturday.
As Q2 got under way again, the rain hit the track, which meant bad news for the bottom five, who therefore had no chance of improving their lap time given the wet track conditions. George Russell, Mick Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Zhou Guanyu and Lance Stroll – Aston Martin were out in Q2. Carlos Sainz made it through to Q3, but of course couldn’t take part in the last stage of qualifying.
Just a few minutes after the start of Q3, Kevin Magnussen went off at Acque Minerali and the red flags were out again in Imola. Just like Norris earlier, he was able to trickle out of the gravel. All cars were on track as Q3 resumed and Charles Leclerc went top for Ferrari, but only two hundredths of a second ahead of Max Verstappen in the Red Bull. Sadly for the Maranello team. just as Max Verstappen went ahead of Charles Leclerc to take top spot, Valtteri Bottas crashed and caused another red flag. Bad luck for Charles, as rain started to fall before the session restarted, which meant that any improvement of the times was looking unlikely. In hindsight, Charles regrets not doing two push laps before the red flag.
Max Verstappen takes pole ahead of Charles Leclerc, while Norris will start third despite his bump with the barrier. All to play for in the Sprint race!
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