The two pilots, who are friends off the track, were the best performers this weekend, as they have been for most of the year. Neither of them faced challenges from their teammates during Saturday’s qualifying session. Norris beat Verstappen by 0.020s to secure his first career pole position.
Based on what we saw during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, these two drivers have an advantage at the well-known Barcelona track. They were three tenths of a second faster than any of their competitors. It is likely that the winner will be one of them.
In contrast to their teammates, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez had disappointing performances on Saturday. Piastri made mistakes during his laps in Q3 and ended up in 10th place on the timing screens. Perez finished in 8th place but received a three-position grid penalty, pushing him down to 11th place. As a result, Piastri moved up to 9th place.
Local hero Fernando Alonso benefited from Perez’s penalty and moved up to 10th place. The Aston Martin driver always performs well in front of his enthusiastic local fans.
The Mercedes duo, Lewis Hamilton (P3) and George Russell (P4), could potentially disrupt the “Norris x Verstappen” prediction. They will start from the second row, which will give them a good position to navigate the tricky first corner after the start.
It will certainly be an interesting race, especially considering the history between Hamilton and Verstappen. Their battles on the track often end in controversy.
The Ferrari drivers, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, will start from the third row, but their performances in qualifying were disappointing. The team boss, Fred Vasseur, hopes for a podium, but it remains to be seen if that is a realistic goal. The performance of the Ferrari cars today is uncertain: they may be competitive or have difficulties.
Despite the developments at Alpine and Flavio Briatore’s return to the Renault team, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon will start from the fourth row. They surprised themselves and others with successful updates to their cars.
On the other hand, the updates to the VCARB cars failed, resulting in a drop in performance for Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo. They will start from the second-to-last row, currently occupied by the Williams drivers. It’s worth noting that Ricciardo achieved a 5th place qualifying result in Canada last time.
