The Monegasque unexpectedly places his Ferrari on the front row. McLaren, the most in-form, the only one with two drivers, but Max Verstappen finds the balance and dominates.
In the end, Red Bull once again pulled itself out of trouble, albeit at the last minute. The last-minute setup decided by the Milton Keynes team proved to be the right one. The sin of arrogance that had put them in serious trouble until the third free practice session was recovered by the extraordinary understanding that the technicians have of the RB19 and the phenomena around it, with Max Verstappen ultimately showing clear superiority throughout the qualifying session.
For those who believe that certain results are a given, it is important to note that they are not, and the difficulty of the Red Bull team was real. However, one of their strengths throughout the season has been the ability to really get the car sorted on the track, with deliberately set base configurations rarely perfect at the simulator, then heavily revised by the team between sessions. The RB19 hit the track with a medium aerodynamic load, relying on its efficiency, especially with DRS open, while still working on the optimal tire management even on a single lap – a key aspect on the Yas Marina circuit, where the soft tires struggle, in a very demanding lap like the qualifying one, to stay in the ideal temperature window for the entire lap, often experiencing issues in the third sector. However, we have compared the top 4 qualifiers to have a clearer picture of what happened on the track.
In the first sector, we notice how Charles Leclerc loses about 1 tenth at turn 1, and then maintains more or less that gap throughout the lap, probably a sign of a slightly colder tire in the warm-up lap, presumably something intentional, sacrificing the first meters but with a minimal extra margin for the third sector. Similarly, we notice how Max Verstappen tackles the transition to curves 2-3 more slowly, the fastest on the circuit, probably to avoid overloading the tires immediately. McLaren and Mercedes, on the other hand, the two cars with more aerodynamic load, tackle the entire first sector very quickly, both evidently without any fear of “sliding” that would cause the tires to overheat. The central sector consists mainly of the two long straights interspersed with the slow chicane. Here, Red Bull benefits from the always very effective DRS, Charles Leclerc loses about half a second on the straight, while Piastri loses almost 2 tenths in the chicane. This confirms, however, that McLaren’s efficiency on the straight is really good, given the high load but good performance in only the straight sections. The one who struggles in the central sector is Mercedes, throughout the year unable to find efficient load and therefore forced to sacrifice straight-line performance when seeking load. The impression is also that the Brackley team somehow needs to contain the power delivery on the straight, given the rear end’s tendency to be weak, which would risk exceeding temperatures if the traction phase went beyond the capabilities of the rear of the W14 to put all the power to the ground.
In the third sector, a sort of miracle by Charles Leclerc
Arriving at the third sector, the lap enters its most complicated phase: the restarts with straight wheels combined with fast corners stress both axes of the car, and if the tires are not in the right temperature window, the time does not come.
Charles Leclerc performs a kind of miracle, with a passage on the edge of the tightrope in all the slow sections, and a prodigious run through curve 14, along with a great braking for 15. In the end, Charles Leclerc’s time in the sector will be even better than Max Verstappen’s, a truly unexpected result even at Ferrari, where there is not much optimism for the performance of the SF-23 on this track. In the lap worth third place, Oscar Piastri shows a great McLaren also in the third sector, but literally “slides” out of the last corner, leaving at least 1 and a half tenths. We also looked at the performance of Lando Norris, who had a lap with a few thousandths of a second from Max Verstappen’s time, and of which we show the telemetry of the mistake.
Norris’s slide in curve 14 costs him about 4 tenths compared to his previous lap, taking away his place on the front row for a race where McLaren will have several chances to do well. The impression is that the British driver has an excellent ability to manage and maintain pace but lacks the “killer instinct” in crucial moments of weekends when he really has golden opportunities, especially on a single lap.
McLaren the most solid, but Max is favored. Mercedes-Ferrari will depend on comebacks
As the weekend progresses, McLaren remains the car that has given the impression of greater solidity so far on the Yas Marina track, and for this reason, it is the only one that has brought the two drivers to compete for both the front row positions, unlike Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari, all with only one driver up there. Obviously, Verstappen’s Red Bull remains the great favorite for the victory in the last race, but it is expected that the two Woking drivers will accompany him on the podium, being most likely that the MCL60 is superior in the race to both Ferrari and Mercedes. The battle for second place in the constructors’ championship will probably be pursued by Russell chasing Leclerc, and to a relevant extent, how Hamilton and Sainz (two big disappointments of the day) will manage to make comebacks from the back to reach the points zone. An intertwined challenge that will be very interesting to follow, for the last act of a unique year in many aspects, in over 70 years of Formula 1.” – he concluded.
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