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2022 F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia — Results & aftermath

GAME ON: Verstappen strikes back for Round 2 victory in Saudi Arabia with late pass on P2 Leclerc; Sainz P3 & unlucky Perez P4, as 2022 appears to be two-team battle between Ferrari & Red Bull

After failing to finish in Round 1 of the 2022 Formula 1 season last week in Bahrain and starting from a disappointing P4 for this Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen received not only improved reliability but also the key breaks during the race to out-duel Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and take his first win of the season. Leclerc and Ferrari had been brilliant all day, using a devious head fake that lured the pole-sitting Red Bull of Sergio Perez into an early stop on Lap 16 while Leclerc stayed out despite team radio suggesting otherwise. It proved to be the first pivotal moment of an eventful race because Williams’ Nicholas Latifi crashed out on the very next lap and forced the deployment of a Safety Car. That allowed the rest of the field to come to the pits for cheap stops for fresh rubber while Perez had just completed his for the full fare. When everyone had cycled through behind the Safety Car, Leclerc now led the race, with Verstappen leapfrogging both Sainz and his teammate Perez for second, while Sainz and Perez squabbled over P3 and P4 respectively. At that point, it looked for all the world that Leclerc had the best car and he seemed to lead out Verstappen fairly easily once the race went back to green on Lap 21.

But the tricky and tight Jeddah Corniche Street Circuit was not done doling out surprises on the day and after twenty-six fairly straightforward laps with the main contenders staying in lockstep the proceedings were again interrupted. First, the Alpine of a hard charging Fernando Alonso lost power and slowed to a stop just in front of pit entry on Lap 37 and then the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo followed suit in practically the exact same area a lap later. This forced the race director not only to engage the Virtual Safety Car in order to retrieve the stranded pair of cars but also to keep the pits closed this time due to their proximate location. Interestingly, by the time the VSC ended on Lap 41 Verstappen had crept a little closer to Leclerc than he was able to at race pace and now only trailed the lead Prancing Horse by just under a second, the delta necessary to activate the Drag Reduction System in the rear wing. It also set things up for a grandstand finish between the two drivers, who so far have to be seen as the favorites for this year’s championship. Continue reading →

2022 F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia — Qualifying results

Red Bull’s Perez snatches pole from Ferrari’s Leclerc at tricky Jeddah Corniche Street Circuit; Sainz P3, Verstappen P4; Hamilton shockingly knocked out in Q1; Schumacher airlifted to hospital after vicious Q2 shunt

On an incident-filled and frankly scary Saturday qualifying for tomorrow’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, it was Red Bull’s ostensible Number Two who managed to come out on top of the timing sheets. Veteran Sergio Perez bested not only his much more heralded teammate, Max Verstappen, but also both Ferraris, the team that looks most likely to challenge Red Bull for the big prizes this season. With a rebel drone strike on a nearby oil facility yesterday sending a a wave of unease through the paddock, the simmering tension was further compounded when Haas’s Mick Schumacher lost it during Q2 and suffered a vicious shunt  Turn 10 of this very tight and tricky Jeddah Conriche Street Circuit that shot him into one concrete barrier and then across to the other side of the track and down the road for quite some ways. While the Haas was completely destroyed, the car also did its part by breaking apart at the rear, as designed, thereby dissipating energy away from the driver. So, despite the massive impact, the initial medical reports on Schumacher were all positive and he was airlifted to hospital for precautionary reasons rather than emergency ones. However, the young German, who is trying to follow in his seven-time champion father Michael’s footsteps, was preemptively ruled out for the Grand Prix and it looks like Haas will only be fielding Kevin Magnussen’s car when the lights go out for tomorrow’s race. Magnussen kept his cool after his teammate’s disturbing crash and qualified P10.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

Schumacher’s accident led to a lengthy Red Flag period with just under five minutes in Q2, both for Schumacher’s painfully slow extraction from his wrecked car and then for some serious track cleanup and barrier repair at the scene of the crash site. But the marshals and race directors did yeoman’s work and were able to get Quali back underway, leading to the all important top ten shootout in Q3. Ferrari had looked the strongest on overall one-lap pace through the race weekend so far, so it was no surprise to see Charles Leclerc, last week’s race winner and pole-sitter in Bahrain, lay down the quickest lap as the seconds ticked down in the final qualifying session. His teammate Carlos Sainz slotted in right behind him by a little over a tenth on his final lap, making it a provisional Ferrari front row lockout, But Perez had other ideas. The veteran pilot drove a flawless final lap, coming nerve wrakingly close to the barriers at times, but wringing the maximum speed out of the Red Bull to earn his first-ever Formula 1 pole and beat back the Ferrari challenge for today. Interestingly, his normally superlative teammate Verstappen struggled to get his Soft Pirelli tires into their optimal operational window durning a cool and breezy night in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah and the Dutch reigning world champion could only muster the fourth fastest time. So it will be Perez and Leclerc on the front row and Sainz and Verstappen on row two, which should make for a really intriguing and likely contentious opening lap in tomorrow’s GP. Continue reading →

2022 F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain — Results & aftermath

Leclerc victorious in season opener, Sainz P2 in promising start to 2022 campaign for Ferrari; disastrous late double DNF for Red Bull leads to podium for Mercedes’ Hamilton, P4 for Russell

In the first race of the 2022 Formula 1 season, team Ferrari proved that its early mastery of the new ground effect-dependent chassis and new engine specs was not a fluke. The famed Scuderia from Maranello, which suffered a prolonged period of mediocrity for much of the prior turbo-hybrid era, saw a spring resurgence as their blood red Prancing Horses finished one-two in the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday. Charles Leclerc, who clearly was the fastest man of the weekend, earned victory after starting from the pole, while his stablemate Carlos Sainz fought hard and took advantage of the terminal failures of both contending Red Bulls late in the race to come home a happy  P2. That marked the first one-two Ferrari finish in a GP since 2019 in Singapore when Sebastian Vettel led home Leclerc. While Leclerc was relatively dominant all day, he was effectively harassed by Verstappen’s Red Bull for the lead throughout, including a ding dong, see saw battle between the two after the first round of pit stops between Laps 16 and 20. Verstappen and his team made effective use of the undercut coming in a lap earlier than then Monegasque to gain track position on Leclerc, which led to several laps of Verstappen passing Leclerc going into Turn 1 and Leclerc snatching the lead back coming out of Turn 4, where the Ferrari’s excellence in the slow speed corners neutralized the Red Bull’s straight line pace advantage. After a period of holding stations and status quo for many laps after that while Verstappen bided his time, it looked like it would be game on again between the two contenders when a full Safety Car was deployed on Lap 46 of this 57-lap contest after Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri stopped on track and unceremoniously burst into flames. It proved to be a very bad omen for other Red Bull-engined cars.

With the field now bunched up again behind Leclerc after pretty much everyone dove to the pits for the cheap stop and a switch to the high performing Soft Pirelli tires to finish out the race, Leclerc’s advantage over Verstappen was reduced to less than a second. But by the time the Safety Car tucked in at the end of Lap 50, Verstappen had been on the radio complaining about a heavy feel to the steering, perhaps having something to do with the power steering hydraulics. Leclerc initiated the restart superbly and gapped Verstappen, although the Dutch reigning world champion still seemed able to stay on the lead Ferrari’s gearbox. But Verstappen’s radio messages to and from the pit wall kept getting more fraught and there was clearly trouble brewing in the car. Sure enough, on Lap 54 something in Verstappen’s engine let go and he was quickly overtaken by most of those behind him. Verstappen wound up limping his mount to the pits but the issue was terminal and he was forced to retire. Climbing out of the car in stunned disbelief as the race stormed to its conclusion without him was a sad way to begin the defense of his first championship.

Continue reading →

2022 F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain — Qualifying results

Leclerc snatches pole for season opener, Sainz P3 in promising start for Ferrari; Red Bull’s reigning champ Verstappen qualifies P2, Hamilton only P5 as Mercedes struggle

The real beginning of Formula 1’s latest new era yielded a multitude of surprises, as the teams put the completely redesigned cars on display for the first time in earnest during Saturday Qualifying for tomorrow’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. With a radical new set of rules changing the look and design of the cars, most notably in cutting down on the complexity of the wings and exterior aero elements for less downforce but with a renewed emphasis on ground effects to stick the chassis to the road surface in exchange, it was the first opportunity to see which teams came out of the box strong and which still had work yet to do. And the answer appears to be that Ferrari has made the biggest improvements under the new regulations and the famed team from Maranello could well be geared up for a mano a mano brawl with Red Bull and their reigning champion, Max Verstappen, for the big prizes at the end of the year. Obviously, one swallow does not make a spring, but Charles Leclerc was able to put his blood red Prancing Horse on pole under the lights at the Bahrain International Circuit, besting Verstappen’s vaunted Adrian Newey-designed Red Bull RB18 at the line by a relatively hefty .123-seconds. Confirming the potential power of the new Ferrari design, Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz was also in contain for the pole, though in the end he slotted in at P3 just barely of Verstappen’s pace. Meanwhile, the Dutch champ’s Ref Bull teammate, Sergio Perez, looked set to reprise his pivotal wingman role once again in 2022, as the Mexican veteran could manage no better than the fourth fastest lap in the face of the Prancing Horses’ rediscovered competitiveness.

The inverse of Ferrari’s resurgent good fortune was the poor debut performance of the normally mighty Mercedes new W13 chassis. With the new ground effects also come new aero headaches and Mercedes have suffered from severe oscillations, aka “porpoising”, throughput testing and in these first days of practice. While the team’s braintrust were able to dial out some of that, especially on their seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton’s mount, Hamilton could still do no better than a P5 start for tomorrow’s race. To say the least, that is an unfamiliar position for the Briton, who frankly dominated the just completed hybrid era until the ascendence of Verstappen and his controversial championship-clinching win to end the 2021 campaign in Abu Dhabi last December. Worse still for the eight-time consecutive Constructors’ Champions, their new number two, England’s young George Russell, suffered the ignominy of qualifying down in P9, about where he would normally end up in the pokey Williams last year. If that wasn’t disheartening enough, the previous Merc second banana, Valtteri Bottas, out-qualified Russell in P6 with his new team, the Ferrari-powered Alfa Romeo. In fact, Ferrari power looked like this first weekend’s winner already, with not only Bottas keeping his Q3 streak alive at Alfa but also Kevin Magnussen marking his return to F1 with a brilliant effort to capture P7 on the grid for perpetual back marker Haas despite battling hydraulic issues. and it was a very promising day for the Scuderia on the power plant front. On the other side off the engine equation, all four Mercedes-powered McLarens and Aston Martins failed to make it into the final qualifying round. Savvy veteran Fernando Alonso willed his Alpine Renault into P8 with a fine final effort while the Red Bull (Honda)-powered AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly struggled with overall handling rand could do no better than P10.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Bahrain GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:31.471 1:30.932 1:30.558 15
2 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING RBPT 1:31.785 1:30.757 1:30.681 14
3 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:31.567 1:30.787 1:30.687 15
4 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING RBPT 1:32.311 1:31.008 1:30.921 18
5 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:32.285 1:31.048 1:31.238 17
6 77 Valtteri Bottas ALFA ROMEO FERRARI 1:31.919 1:31.717 1:31.560 15
7 20 Kevin Magnussen HAAS FERRARI 1:31.955 1:31.461 1:31.808 12
8 14 Fernando Alonso ALPINE RENAULT 1:32.346 1:31.621 1:32.195 14
9 63 George Russell MERCEDES 1:32.269 1:31.252 1:32.216 17
10 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI RBPT 1:32.096 1:31.635 1:32.338 21

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN here in the States beginning at 11AM Eastern here in the States. Can Ferrari set the pace over the course of a full Grand Prix or will Verstappen’s superlative skills where down the Prancing Horses and deny them victory? And just how much pain will Mercedes take tomorrow as the team focuses on early season damage limitation? Look forward to seeing you then to find out how it all shakes out in the 2022 opener!

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia — Qualifying results

Hamilton earns pole in Jeddah after Verstappen hits wall on final attempt, relegating points leader to P3 on grid; Bottas will start P2 as Mercedes lock out front row

With time expired in Q3 during Saturday qualifying for the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the daunting, high speed Jeddah Corniche Street Circuit, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen looked to be setting a blistering lap good enough to snatch the pole position from Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton. But the Dutch points leader stepped just that far over the line and smacked the wall at the last corner with his right rear tire, bringing his car and his qualifying attempt to an abrupt end. That meant Hamiton’s fastest lap held up as the pole time and Verstappen was also unable to jump the second Silver Arrow of Valtteri Bottas. So Bottas will line up alongside his team leader in P2 for a Mercedes front row lockout and Verstappen will start P3… assuming that he didn’t damage his gearbox badly enough to force a pre-race change, which would demote him a further five positions on a very tight and demanding circuit where overtaking will be at an absolute premium. With Verstappen leading Hamilton by a slim 8 points in the Drivers’ Championship, it is mathematically possible for the Dutchman to take the F1 crown in this penultimate race with a net gain of 18 points. But it is also quite a bit more likely that Hamilton, who has been on a superb run of form that has seen the English seven-time champ win the last two GP on the trot, will continue to apply the pressure, eat into Verstappen’s lead if not overtake him and, either way, push this titanic 2021 title tilt to the final round in Abu Dhabi next weekend.

Behind those front three, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc landed safely in P4 after his teammate Carlos Sainz had several hairy moments of snap oversteer in Q2 and failed to advance out of that round. Sainz will have to figure out a way to move forward from P15 and help the team maximize points in their fierce fight with McLaren, which saw Lando Norris qualify in P7 and Daniel Ricciardo in P11. The second Red Bull of Sergio Perez struggled his way to a disappointing P5 qualifying time, while the two AlphaTauris performed well at this brand new track, with the talented Pierre Gasly setting the sixth fastest time in Q3 and rookie Yuki Tsunonda continuing his recent improvement by slotting in at a decent P8. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi qualified in P9 and P10 respectively.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Saudi Arabian GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:28.466 1:27.712 1:27.511 23
2 77 Valtteri Bottas MERCEDES 1:28.057 1:28.054 1:27.622 25
3 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA 1:28.285 1:27.953 1:27.653 19
4 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:28.310 1:28.459 1:28.054 24
5 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA 1:28.021 1:27.946 1:28.123 23
6 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI HONDA 1:28.401 1:28.314 1:28.125 26
7 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:28.338 1:28.344 1:28.180 21
8 22 Yuki Tsunoda ALPHATAURI HONDA 1:28.503 1:28.222 1:28.442 26
9 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 1:28.752 1:28.574 1:28.647 22
10 99 Antonio Giovinazzi ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI 1:28.899 1:28.616 1:28.754 21

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN2 beginning at 12:30pm Eastern here in the States. It will be tense times all around with fingers crossed in the Red Bull garage that Verstappen didn’t seriously damage his car in that fateful late-quali tank slapper. Conversely, Hamilton will be looking to convert pole into the win and, perhaps with a bit of misfortune to his title rival, overhaul the Dutchman to take the lead going into the final contest. Also, if I were a betting man I would count on at least one Safety Car or Red Flag period to potentially shake things up — especially concerning is the pit out blend line where it seems to me cars exiting could come to grief with those steaming down the start-finish straight at full chat if everyone is not super careful.  Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Qatar — Qualifying results

Hamilton blisters field for pole at inaugural Qatar GP; Verstappen P2, Bottas P3 while rest of grid jumbled by unpredictable results at Losail

Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton gave his very best effort to keep his title hopes alive and the momentum going after last week’s win in Brazil by laying down an untouchably fast lap in Saturday Qualifying, seizing the pole position for tomorrow’s inaugural Qatar Grand Prix. With the entire field coming to grips with the first time use of the Losail International Circuit for a Formula 1 race, Hamilton proved to be the fastest learner in the bunch, setting a track record 1:20.827 time, some .455 seconds faster than his closest competitor, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. It was a fairly whopping advantage in Formula 1 terms that earned Ham the Man his first pole since way back in Round 11 at Hungary and sees him peaking at the right time as the season rushes to its conclusion. With only three races remaining in the 2021 campaign including tomorrow’s final leg of a grueling, multi-hemisphere triple header and Hamilton trailing Verstappen by 14 points in the Drivers’ standings, victory will be crucial for the legendary English pilot if he is to secure his unprecedented eighth world title and hold off the Dutch wunderkind who is more than a little hungry to score the first of his already impressive career.

While the second Silver Arrow of Valtteri Bottas did his part for the team by setting the third fastest time, thereby putting him in a position to harass Verstappen from behind and support Hamilton’s quest for victory in tomorrow’s race, the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez struggled mightily at Losail. Despite having raced here back in his GP2 days, Verstappen’s Mexican wingman was unceremoniously bounced out of Q2 with only the eleventh fastest time. While this will give Checo and the team some extra tires and strategic options, starting from P11 with a ton of competitive cars in front of them can hardly be what they were hoping for on the day. In fact, perhaps due to the unfamiliarity of the circuit, there were numerous unpredictable qualifying results up and down the field. Continue reading →

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Mexico City — Results & aftermath

ECSTASY FOR RED BULL, AGONY FOR MERCEDES: Verstappen earns dominant win in Mexico City; Hamilton holds on for P2 over Perez but pole-sitter Bottas spins out of points in opening lap contretemps

Red Bull’s superlative pilot Max Verstappen took another step closer to earning his first Formula 1 Drivers’ title by cruising to a dominant victory at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday. The Dutch wunderkind, who started from P3 on the grid after Mercedes surprised the paddock by locking out the front row during Saturday qualifying, made an outstanding overtaking move going on the outside into Turn 1 against the pole-sitting Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas and the P2 car of Lewis Hamilton. To compound the Finn’s misfortunes, Bottas was promptly spun around after contact from the rear by McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, completely wrecking both fo their days although no penalties were assessed. With Verstappen also scooting around the outside of the English seven-time Champion in that impressive two-for-one maneuver, he took a lead in the race that he would never really relinquish again. As the lead Red Bull scampered away from him in the distance, Hamilton was forced to defend his vital second place for the latter portion of this 71-lap contest against Verstappen’s teammate and hometown hero Sergio “Checo” Perez. The hard charging Mexican harried and harassed Hamilton as best he could in an effort to strip even more points from the number two man in the Championship and aid Verstappen’s title hunt but Hamilton had enough left to hold on for those valuable P2 points when the laps ran out.

Continue reading →

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Mexico City — Qualifying results

Bottas seizes pole in Mexico, Hamilton P2 for Mercedes front row lockout; Verstappen P3 as Silver Arrows’ pace surprises Red Bull

Despite looking faster than their key rivals during all the practices and the early qualifying rounds for tomorrow’s Mexico City Grand Prix, Red Bull was bested by their nemesis Mercedes when it mattered most during Saturday qualifying. Valtteri Bottas, who has ironically driven better than ever since being told by the team that his serviced would no longer be required in 2022, put his Silver Arrow on pole position in the thin and very warm air of the high-altitude Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. Bottas was the only man to set a sub-sixteen second lap on the day, besting his more heralded teammate Lewis Hamilton by a fairly sizable .145-seconds. Better still for the Mercedes factory team, they locked out the front row and relegated the formidable Red Bull of Max Verstappen to P3. The Dutch points leader was not helped when he was forced to lift on his final effort due to a contretemps just up the road between his teammate Sergio Perez and the AlphaTauri of rookie Yuki Tsunoda as time expired in Q3. The hometown hero Perez’s lap, and his attempt to become the first Mexican to claim pole at his home GP, was completely ruined but his earlier fast lap was still good enough for P4, where he will be in the best possible position to help Verstappen get back on terms with the fleet Mercedes duo in general and his arch-rival Hamilton in particular.

Behind that fast four, the second AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly was mighty impressive and qualified P5, while teammate Tsunoda had to settle for P9 after his off that balked Perez’s final charge. Carlos Sainz headed his Ferrari stablemate Charles Leclerc P6 to P8 and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo did the same to his teammate Lando Norris, P7 to P10.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Mexico City GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 77 Valtteri Bottas MERCEDES 1:16.727 1:16.864 1:15.875 23
2 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:17.207 1:16.474 1:16.020 22
3 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA 1:16.788 1:16.483 1:16.225 18
4 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA 1:17.003 1:17.055 1:16.342 18
5 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI HONDA 1:16.908 1:16.955 1:16.456 22
6 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:17.517 1:17.248 1:16.761 23
7 3 Daniel Ricciardo MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:17.719 1:17.092 1:16.763 17
8 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:16.748 1:17.034 1:16.837 22
9 22 Yuki Tsunoda ALPHATAURI HONDA 1:17.330 1:16.701 1:17.158 19
10 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:17.569 1:17.473 1:36.830 19

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

 Tomorrow’s race airs live beginning at 2PM Eastern on ABC here in the States. With only five races to go in 2021 and Verstappen’s lead over Hamilton a thin twelve points, maximizing performance and keeping it clean in Mexico City will be key for the two top title contenders. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2021 F1 Grand Prix of the United States — Qualifying results

Red Bull holding the aces in Texas as Verstappen claims pole over P2 Hamilton; Perez in support in P3

Formula 1 returned to the United States and the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas for the United States Grand Prix after a year’s hiatus due to the COVID pandemic and were greeted with hot weather and throngs of delighted fans in the stands. That energy was palpable at this beautifully flowing circuit just outside Austin when the 120,000 or so F1 faithful were treated to a scintillating Saturday Qualifying to determine the starting order for tomorrow’s GP. With Red Bull looking the best suited to COTA’s twists and turns all weekend long so far, Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton tried to muscle his way onto the pole position with a very effective fast lap in the dying seconds of Q3 that put the English seven-time champion ever so briefly on the top of the timing pylon. But his arch nemesis this season and the current championship points leader, Red Bull’s superb Max Verstappen, hooked up a beautifully smooth final quali lap that saw the Dutch phenom leapfrog Lewis to claim pole for tomorrow’s race. His teammate Sergio Perez, who had held the provisional pole earlier in the session to the delight of his Mexican compatriots who made up a fair percentage of those in attendance, had to settle for P3. But he will certainly be in a position to support Max in his battle to get the better of Hamilton and keep his momentum going as the season dwindles down to a handful of races and perhaps take advantage should the two championship protagonists come to grief in the heat of battle.

That Verstappen-Perez 1-3 on the gird gave a decisive advantage to Red Bull because, despite the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas qualifying just back of Perez in P4, the veteran Finn will have to take a five-spot penalty come tomorrow due to one too many engine changes. That will promote the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc after they were the best of the rest and set times in Q3 good enough for P5 and P6 respectively. Ferrari seems to have really found something in this last third of the season and they bettered their chief rivals for third in the all important Constructors’ Championship, the excellent McLaren duo of Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris, after the latter duo could only manage the seventh and eighth fastest time in quali respectively. Rounding out the top 10 qualifiers and in keeping with the Noah’s Ark theme, Pierre Gasly was P9 and teammate Yuki Tsunoda was tenth fastest, marking the second week in a row the Japanese rookie made it through to Q3, a sign that he may be figuring things out at this level after suffering a real midseason slump.

Top 10 qualifiers for the United States Grand Prix:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA 1:34.352 1:33.464 1:32.910 16
2 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:34.579 1:33.797 1:33.119 16
3 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA 1:34.369 1:34.178 1:33.134 19
4 77 Valtteri Bottas MERCEDES 1:34.590 1:33.959 1:33.475 15
5 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:34.153 1:33.928 1:33.606 17
6 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:34.558 1:34.126 1:33.792 15
7 3 Daniel Ricciardo MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:34.407 1:34.643 1:33.808 15
8 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:34.551 1:33.880 1:33.887 14
9 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI HONDA 1:34.567 1:34.583 1:34.118 17
10 22 Yuki Tsunoda ALPHATAURI HONDA 1:35.360 1:35.137 1:34.918 18

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live beginning at 3PM Eastern on ABC here in the States. The winner at COTA has historically come from the front row of the grid. Hope to see you then to find out if Verstappen or Hamilton can keep that tradition alive!

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Turkey — Results & aftermath

Bottas excels in dominant win at wet Turkish GP; Verstappen P2, Perez P3 on good day for Red Bull; disgruntled Hamilton settles for P5 after questionable late pit stop

Mercedes’ number two driver Valtteri Bottas, who has endured such a difficult season that the team decided not to bring him back for next year, showed his quality by taking a dominant victory at the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday. With the conditions at the Intercity Istanbul Park circuit very challenging throughout the race due to consistently drizzly and humid conditions that ruled slick tires out entirely, Bottas managed his Intermediate wet weather Pirelli tires masterfully, converting the pole position he inherited due to teammate Lewis Hamilton’s 10 grid-spot engine change penalty into a dominant win ahead of the two pursuing Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. While Bottas bested P2 Verstappen by over 14.5-seconds and also nabbed the bonus point for the day’s fastest lap, it actually turned into a fine day for the Dutchman and team Red Bull as a whole. Not only did he get his second second place in-a-row but wingman Perez was somewhat gifted his P3 after a controversial late call by the Mercedes braintrust to pit Hamilton for a fresh Inters on Lap 51 of this 58 lap contest. Hamilton, who started down in P11 on the grid after the penalty but had fought his way all the way up to P3 by that point with a slew of determined passes, had been lobbying to stay out and run to the end on his original set of Inters. But the team instead he box and when he emerged from the pits and found himself behind Perez and also Leclerc once again the English seven-time champion was vociferously displeased with the strategy call and repeatedly questioned the wisdom of the move.

Presumably, the Silver Arrows brain trust were looking to cover a late cloudburst that would have rendered Hamilton’s nearly bald original Inters useless in standing water. But the end realist was Hamilton having to fight through the predictable graining period of the treaded Pirellis without enough laps remaining for them to return to their best performance. He could never threaten the P4 Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in front of him to advance his position as the laps ran outand had to settle for holding off Pierre Gasly’s rapidly closing AlphaTauri and coming home P5. While it was decent damage limitation on a day when he started outside the points, Hamilton will no doubt be grilling the team on their strategy call and the fact that it had net result of Lewis ceding the championship lead back to Verstappen by six points with six races left in the season.  So while it was a good day in the abstract for Mercedes, who finally got a strong showing from Bottas with his win and a decent points haul from Hamilton after chosing to take the hit and change his power unit, it somehow still felt a bit less than fulfilling due to Hamilton’s bitter disappointment with the team’s tire tactics. On the other hand, Red Bull were well pleased with their double podium results on the day when it was clear that they didn’t have the race pace to challenge Mercedes for the win. With the rounds dwindling to a mere half dozen, it will be all to play for at the next race in the USA at COTA in two week’s time.

Pics courtesy GRandPrix247.com

Not only did Leclerc have an excellent race by securing that valuable P4 for Ferrari but the Scuderia got the bonus of a spectacular recovery effort by Carlos Sainz, who started from way back in P19 due to his own engine change penalty but made a passel of passes to fight all the way back up to a P8 finish. It was easily one of the Spaniard’s best efforts on the year, if not career, and shows that if the engineers at Maranello can get next year’s chassis and engine up to snuff they have a driver combo that can potentially compete with any other duo on the grid. Gasly also did well by AlphaTauri to take that P6 just behind Hamilton, though the Frenchman and his team will be wondering what might have been if he hadn’t been handed a rather harsh 5-second penalty for contact with Fernando Alonso on the opening lap that looked pretty much like a standard racing incident. Lando Norris, who had to recover psychologically from his heartbreaking experience in Sochi two weeks ago, was the only McLaren in the points after finishing P7 at a circuit that simply did not seem to suit their papaya-colored cars due to an abundance of long, medium speed corners. With Ferrari hot on their heels for third in the all important Contructors title, McLaren will be hoping for a better fit when they unload in Austin. Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, who seems to excel in these sorts of mixed weather conditions, did well again to finish in P9, while Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, who ran the entire race on one set of Inters, held on to P10 for the final points paying position.

Top 10 finishers of the Turkish GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 77 Valtteri Bottas MERCEDES 58 1:31:04.103 26
2 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA 58 +14.584s 18
3 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA 58 +33.471s 15
4 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 58 +37.814s 12
5 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 58 +41.812s 10
6 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI HONDA 58 +44.292s 8
7 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 58 +47.213s 6
8 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 58 +51.526s 4
9 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES 58 +82.018s 2
10 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 57 +1 lap 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in two week’s time — the return of the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas after a year’s hiatus due to COVID. Hamilton will be positively champing at the bit to get back on track and put the disappointment of today’s events behind him. Verstappen will be looking to keep and expand his lead in the points with his first F1 title so close he can almost taste it. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!