Charles Leclerc has continued to set the pace after beating Max Verstappen to pole
position by three-tenths of a second for the Spanish Grand Prix. The Ferrari driver was left with just a single lap in Q3 after spinning his Ferrari through the final chicane on his first run, but that didn’t stop him from taking his fourth pole of the season.
Leclerc, however, bounced back on his final attempt going fastest in all three sectors to take pole, Ferrari have looked quick all weekend while Verstappen was unable to improve because of ‘power unit issues’ on his final run. The Red Bull driver going almost nine hundredths faster than Carlos Sainz, to spilt the two Ferrari’s.
The Monacan’s 18.750, is the fastest time of the weekend after Verstappen was unable to unlock performance from the car, it means he takes the thirteenth pole of his career after pulling out a good lap on his final attempt. Leclerc aborted his first attempt after spinning the Ferrari at Turn Fourteen.
The rear axle of the Ferrari rotated into the left-handed part of the tight chicane when, like in Imola, he grabbed too much kerb. He then locked all four tyres bringing the car to a stop.
Verstappen capitalising on that mistake on the first run, but the lingering power unit issues which have hampered Red Bull all season appeared to raise its head again. However following the session team principal Christian Horner said it was a DRS issue which cost the Dutchman, but it looked unlikely that Red Bull had the final bit of speed needed to challenge Leclerc.
The race down to turn one puts the two title contenders head to head, although Leclerc appears to be the driver to beat after proving very competitive on the long runs. George Russell put his Mercedes fourth, the Mercedes driver two tenths behind Sainz, in the strongest performance by the team in Barcelona all season.
Leclerc told reporters “feel good. It went extremely well. I had a bit of a moment but I made it stick. It was a very good lap and the car was amazing too, so very, very happy.”
Verstappen, he said, admitting that Red Bull had struggled to find a balance in the car this weekend, “To be on the front row is a good performance but I would like to have gone for that final lap.”
Ferrari’s pace meant they decided not to opt for fresh soft tyres for Q2, and Verstappen was lucky to avoid more power unit trouble. The Dutchman failing to take advantage of Leclerc’s spin, at the time the Ferrari driver was trying to capitise on Verstappen’s engine woes. Again highlighting the fine margins between the two rivals, and their teams.
Russell was six tenths off pole, but the upgrades brought this weekend appears to have reduced the porpoising which has been affecting them all season. They were tipped briefly to challenge for pole, but beating Sergio Perez will be seen as a big step.
Perez spilt the Mercedes, he was almost three-hundredths behind Russell but managed to out qualify Lewis Hamilton by eight hundredths.
Mercedes’s pace has shown a big step forwards, but Hamilton still appears to struggle more than Russell with the handling of the Mercedes. CEO and team principal Toto Wolff hailing the step forwards saying the team have solved the porpoising issues which have plagued the team this year.
The seven-time champion says that it will be still a challenge but they can in the race to fight Ferrari and Red Bull. Hamilton says while he was disappointed with his position given the step forwards Mercedes made, he believed he was faster on his out lap costing him time,
Adding, “We’ve definitely moved forward, which is great. On one side, there is a rule that we have to stick to a delta time. With these tyres, if you do a really slow out lap, you can save a lot of temperatures and you gain a lot of time there were several cars ahead of me who didn’t stick to the delta.
Valtteri Bottas was best of the rest, the Finn putting his Alfa Romeo seventh going nearly a tenth faster than Kevin Magnussen, Daniel Ricciardo was ninth splitting the Haas’s.
McLaren opting not to do a final run in Q3, which left him over half a second behind the Dane, but he was seven hundredths ahead of Mick Schumacher. Schumacher made it through to Q3 for the first time in his career, but that came at the expense of Ricciardo’s teammate Lando Norris. The British based American owned team getting both cars into Q3 for the first time since 2019.
Norris was through but his fastest time was deleted after the chequered flag, on his fastest lap he exceeded track limits which would have seen him through to the final part of qualifying.
Norris had to settle for eleventh, a quarter of a second ahead of Esteban Ocon and the two Alpha Tauri’s, with Yuki Tsunoda two tenths faster than teammate Pierre Gasly. The Frenchman struggled with oversteer on his final run, after he also
Aston Martin looked in practice to have the pace, despite the controversy around the team’s upgrades. Red Bull has accused them of copying their design, which puts the team once again facing questions about whether it has been done legitimately.
But it didn’t help the team make a step forwards, Sebastian Vettel sixteenth and teammate Lance Stroll nearly half a second behind in eighteenth. Fernando Alonso was a surprise Q1 knock out, despite Alpine showing pace in practice, he was forced to abort his final run and wait.
As the times improved at the end of the session he was pushed to seventeenth, the Spaniard putting it down to a misunderstanding however doubted they could have made it through to Q3.
Alonso explained, “I started the lap just behind Lando thinking that I had, like, one or two seconds’ margin with the red light but it was like twenty seconds’ margin. If I knew that in advance, I could create a little more margin with Lando and do my own lap.”
The two Williams rounding out the field with Alex Albon three and a half tenths faster than teammate Nicolas Latifi.
