Max Verstappen takes pole at his home Grand Prix, beating Lewis Hamilton by a minuscule 0.038 seconds with Valtteri Bottas just behind in third! It all came good in their final runs as all three improved with Lewis Hamilton taking an impressive 1 and a half tenths out of the RedBull just in the final sector – however, it was not enough as Max Verstappen made the Orange Army proud with the pole!
Written by Aiden Hover, Edited by Esmée Koppius
Pierre Gasly once again performed miracles in his Alpha Tauri with an impeccable lap to put himself fourth on the grid tomorrow just ahead of the two Ferrari’s who will line up 5th and 6th, Leclerc ahead of Sainz – who has worked hard to recover from his crash in FP3. Another stand out performer was Antonio Giovinazzi who put his Alfa Romeo in 7th place with a good lap as he makes his case for a 2022 seat. The two Alpines of Ocon and Alonso lined up 8th and 9th in that order with Daniel Ricciardo rounding out the top 10 with his McLaren.
George Russell endured a roller coaster ride of emotions as he triggered the first red flag of qualifying following a dramatic trip across the gravel at turn 13 on his final attempt. The Brit, however, was able to make it back to the pitlane, but later investigation showed that the damage was too much for him to go back out on track. With the interrupted session, Lance Stroll was unable to get a lap together that would drag him out of the drop zone, as was Lando Norris who struggled even to get out of Q1. Nicholas Latifi caused the next red flag that eventually ended the session with a massive shunt as his Williams got away from him at turn 8 – fortunately, the Canadian seems to be fine and fit to race tomorrow. Yuki Tsunoda will start P15.
The big stories of Q1 were the shock eliminations of Sergio Perez and Sebastian Vettel who both seemed to be victims of slow traffic on their final attempts – with the latter being involved in a scary incident as Nikita Mazepin suddenly swerved out of line in front of the German, forcing him to abort the lap. Lining up P18 is the sub of Robert Kubica who has performed well considering his lack of practice as the Pole replaces Kimi Raikkonen for this weekend following a positive covid test for the retiring veteran. Forming the back row once again is the two Haas’ of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazpein, with the Russian expecting a penalty for his incident with Vettel.
Be sure not to miss tomorrow’s race as it’s set to be a thriller with the title rivals lining up at the front of the row together for the first time since THAT Silverstone race.
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