It’s a Sprint weekend in Sao Paulo, so if you needed reminding of how it all works, here’s your guide. Earlier today, Practice 1 went on ahead as usual, the teams and drivers having one hour to get up to speed. Then, instead of another practice session, were were now ready for the competitors to go straight into qualifying. It’s the same three-round format as is usually on a Saturday afternoon – just on a Friday!
The first session on Saturday will be Practice 2, when Practice 3 unusually is. This gives the drivers a bit more time to get used to the track, except, unusually they know where they will be starting on the grid later that day. After a bit of lunch and a chat with the team, the drivers buckle up again for a Saturday afternoon Sprint race, a third of the full Grand Prix distance, starting in the positions earned in Friday’s qualifying session. The top eight finishers receive points, with P1 getting eight points, going down to P8 getting one point. Thee finishing order of Saturday’s Sprint sets the order for the Grand Prix that we all know and love on Sunday afternoon. The usual points are given out to the top ten finishers.
Good news from Interlagos ahead of the qualifying session: the rain relented, and while it continued to fall, it didn’t appear to be strong enough to cause a delay to the start of Qualifying. With the calming of rain, visibility around the circuit also improved slightly. That means we were all set to get under way at the 4.30km Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace.
The Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was one of the first cars out. The Monegasque driver was told over his team radio that there is rain expected in just 10 minutes, interrupting Q1. Lots of the drivers queued up to get out on track and they were looking to get a quick time in before it gets any slippier out there. With the track drying out while all 20 cars were out there, we were seeing the timesheet change with great regularity: Fernando Alonso edged ahead of the Red Bull cars. Lewis Hamilton was fourth but in just a minute ago he was down to 13th in what was a dramatic 10 minutes!
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Pierre Gasly took a gamble: He swapped the intermediates with which he started the session for a set of softs, while everyone else was watching how the AlphaTauri performed on the slicks. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton went fastest with a 1:18.051, while Pierre Gasly completed his out-lap and was making his first attempt at a flying lap on the slick tyres.
The gamble paid off for Pierre Gasly and AlphaTauri: the Frenchman went 0.4s clear of Lewis Hamilton on those soft tyres, which of course triggered just about the entire field, or those who hadn’t already, to come in for slicks. The top of the timesheet was changing almost constantly, the latest to occupy first was McLaren’s Lando Norris. With all 20 cars on track, there was traffic everywhere!
Amid that chaos, Daniel Ricciardo snuck through in 15th, while Carlos Sainz was just a place ahead for Ferrari. Track position was crucial there, with those taking the chequered flag later in a strong position on the drying track. Nicholas Latifi (Williams), Zhou Guanyu, Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo), Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Tauri) and Mick Schumacher (Haas) were out in Q1.
We were back under way for the 15-minute Q2 session. All 15 cars were out on track immediately, looking to get some insurance laps in amid the changing conditions. It was also dry enough that DRS was been enabled in the start of Q2, as these conditions really seemed to be suiting Lando Norris. The McLaren driver topped Q1, and went fastest after the first run in Q2, about 0.1s ahead of Max Verstappen at that stage. A lot of the drivers have been on the radio about the conditions and Carlos Sainz has some complaints: “It is raining a lot.” The Ferrari man was 11th at that moment and very much at risk.
Just as we thought the increased intensity of the rain might have frozen the timesheet, a series of improved times followed! At the other end of the timesheet, Max Verstappen was fractionally ahead of Carlos Sainz for top spot, with the Spaniard’s Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc in third. George Russell was fourth for Mercedes, with Lando Norris continuing to impress in fifth. Alex Albon (Williams), Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri), Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin), Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) and Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) were out in Q2.
A queue formed as the cars looked to get back out as quickly as they could to get a lap done on the slick tyres before any more rain came down. As he headed out onto the track, Leclerc had a question for his team about their tyre choices: “Am I the only one on inters?” And he is told yes. Charles then came in for slicks after that failed Ferrari experiment, desperately hoping that decision doesn’t cost them.
A few moments later George Russell spun and was stuck in the gravel: we had a red flag, and that was the end of the Brit’s Qualifying.
Charles Leclerc was back on his team radio to check if everyone got a lap in on their slick tyres before the red flag and the answer is not the one he would have wanted. The rain was now coming and it could mean times didn’t improve.
“Did everybody complete a lap on the slicks,” he asks. “Yes they did,” he is told. And his reply….”Nice, beautiful. * beautiful.”
Charles’ day was done as he got out of his F1-75 car, while Lewis Hamilton was going back out on the intermediates to see what he can do. But there was nothing to be done given the wet track and what a moment it turned out to be for Haas! Kevin Magnussen will be on POLE for tomorrow’s Sprint!
Carlos Sainz will start from fifth place, while Charles Leclerc from tenth place.
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