Max Verstappen draws first blood this weekend over his championship rival Norris as he goes fastest in sprint qualifying.
SQ1
Alex Albon was lucky to keep his car in one piece after spinning at the penultimate corner towards the end of the session, having taken too much of the sausage kerb. As he was already in the elimination zone when this took place, it meant that he was knocked out of sprint qualifying in the first session.
A surprise exit in SQ1 was Oscar Piastri. He initially looked as though he was on the right side of track limits coming into that same penultimate corner, though it quickly became apparent that a snap of oversteer forced him wide, and a time that would have seen him comfortably through to SQ2 was deleted.
ELIMINATED
16. Oscar Piastri– McLaren +0.016
17. Esteban Ocon – Alpine +0.052
18. Alex Albon – Williams +0.189
19. Valtteri Bottas – Kick Sauber +0.283
20. Zhou Guanyu – Kick Sauber +0.328
SQ2
Liam Lawson returns to F1, now with a full time drive after replacing Daniel Ricciardo after the Singapore Grand Prix. He will have a 60 place grid penalty ahead of Sunday’s grand prix, so this sprint qualifying session is the only one for him to set himself up for a representative grid slot for the weekend. In the end, his return to F1 in this session ended here, with a grid slot of 12th, whilst teammate Tsunoda squeaked through into SQ3 in 10th.
Fernando Alonso was the next to fall foul of track limits at the second to last corner, carrying too much speed through it. Whilst his lap time was not good enough to reach SQ3 anyway, his deleted lap time means he will start the sprint in 15th.
Just as Norris will be without his teammate at the sharp end of the grid, neither will Max Verstappen, as Sergio Perez’s lap time was only fast enough for 11th.
ELIMINATED
11. Sergio Perez – Red Bull + 0.192
12.Liam Lawson – RB +0.232
13. Pierre Gasly – Alpine +0.311
14. Lance Stroll – Aston Martin NO TIME
15. Fernando Alonso – Aston Martin NO TIME
SQ3
Mercedes opted to set their laps for SQ3 early, with George Russell taking an early lead and Hamilton struggling more with the balance of the car and ending up behind. Colapinto had also gone early, but had a spin at turn 12 during his lap, and the subsequent lap he needed to take to set a time was not with the best that his tyres could have had to offer.
As the others came out to set their lap times, challenging George Russell proved to be a difficult task. Neither Ferrari drivers nor Lando Norris were able to beat his time, and would ultimately fall to fourth after Verstappen was able to just squeeze ahead of Russell by 12 thousandths of a second to return to the front of the grid ahead of the sprint race.
Sprint Qualifying Results
1. Max Verstappen – Red Bull 1:32.833
2. George Russell – Mercedes +0.012
3. Charles Leclerc – Ferrari +0.226
4. Lando Norris – McLaren +0.250
5. Carlos Sainz – Ferrari +0.256
6. Nico Hulkenberg – Haas +0.350
7. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes +0.545
8. Kevin Magnussen – Haas +0.565
9. Yuki Tsunoda – Alpha Tauri +0.969
10. Franco Colapinto – Williams +1.573
