Valtteri Bottas secured his 3rd consecutive pole position today, as he managed to outpace his teammate, Lewis Hamilton by a whopping margin of 0.6s. Mercedes inevitably managed to secure a front row start.
With Mercedes on the front row and Red Bull's Max Verstappen diving the Ferraris, of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc, the stage is set for the fifth race of the season. Though the race will be a tough one for Leclerc, Ricciardo, Hulkenberg and Russel as they suffer from technical and regulatory setbacks, here's how the Qualifying for the 2019 Emirates Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix panned out.
Q1
With a few minutes remaining Renault's Nico Hulkenberg binned his Renault as he exited turn 4. Though a small shunt the crash was strong enough to knock his front wing from under his car forcing to end his Q1 outing sooner than he hoped, even though he was trailing his teammate Daniel Ricciardo by just 0.019 seconds.
Other knock outs from Q1 include Racing Point's Lance Stroll in his 9th consecutive Q1 misfortune, Alfa's Antonio Giovinazzi, and Williams' George Russel and Robert Kubica, with Russel serving a five place grid penalty at the start tomorrow.
Lando Norris of McLaren finished Q1 with an impressive P6 just six tenths off the leader, Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas.
Q2
Mercedes led the session yet again with Hamilton and Bottas both setting track records with Bottas finishing the session first with a blisteringly fast lap of 1:15.924, over seventh tenths faster than the nearest Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel. Charles Leclerc in the other Ferrari suffered a broken car as he went too wide and damaged the essential aerodynamic bodywork and the floor of his car.
McLaren was unable to establish a standing in Q2 as both of it's drivers knocked out, with Carlos Sainz getting out-qualified by his teammate, a first for him at his home track. Raikkonen, Perez and Albon were the other drivers unable to make it to Q3 with Renault's Daniel Ricciardo barely making it through.
Q3
Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas set the bar high with a blisteringly fast lap of 1:15.406 in his first try, while his teammate Lewis Hamilton was six tenths off the pace set by the Finn. With no driver able to better the lap set by Bottas, the Finn will once again start the race tomorrow on pole position. On P2 with him will be Lewis Hamilton. Ferrari's ambition of starting from the second row was however shattered as Red Bull's Max Verstappen splitting the Ferraris.
Finishing P6 was Red Bull's Pierre Gasly and behind him are the midfield's favourite Haas F1 of Grosjean and Magnussen. Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat scored P9 and Renault's Daniel Ricciardo was able to score the last place available at P10.
The Race
Valtteri Bottas will be starting the race with his third consecutive pole position this season and Ricciardo and Russel will be serving penalties of three and five grid places respectively. However the drivers to watch out for will be Leclerc, Norris and Sainz as all three will be giving it all in the starting laps of the race.
Final Classification
Comments