Lando Norris was the top driver in the Sprint qualifying and now has the lead for the Sprint race, with Oscar Piastri in 3rd and Max Verstappen only 6th!
Lando Norris took the lead for Saturday’s Sprint race by winning the Sprint Pole Position, while he will be particularly pleased by the fact that his two rivals for the drivers’ championship will only be in 3rd (Piastri) and 6th (Verstappen), with Kimi Antonelli impressing with his 2nd place!
We remind you that in the Sprint qualifying the 20 drivers must run in SQ1 and SQ2 with fresh medium tires each time while in SQ3 they will use soft tires. Also, the time duration is shorter as SQ1 lasts 12 minutes, SQ2 10 minutes while the “final” of SQ3 only 8 minutes, in which the -usually tough- battle for the Sprint Pole Position takes place!
From early on in SQ1 we had unpleasant surprises, as Yuki Tsunoda and Carlos Sainz were eliminated ! The Japanese was extremely disappointing, while the Spaniard, who will start the Sprint race last, had complaints from the team regarding the entire execution of the procedure, and also made a mistake on his final lap, while the other three eliminated were Franco Colapinto , Liam Lawson and Esteban Ocon (also made a mistake on his final lap).
The negative surprises continued in SQ2 as Lewis Hamilton only finished 11th , being of course also unlucky, as on his last lap there was a yellow flag for a collision with his teammate, Charles Leclerc , with the Briton, who was not having a terrible lap anyway, having to “lift” the throttle slightly, as a result of which he lost any chance he had for SQ3.
Along with Hamilton , Alex Albon , Pierre Gasly , Gabriel Bortoleto and Ollie Bearman were left out. The Brazilian from Sauber will certainly be disappointed with himself, seeing his teammate enter the SQ3, while he himself managed to find himself only 14th in front of his compatriots , while on the other hand the Frenchman from Alpine had a good performance , being 13th with the clearly last dynamic car!
