Tag Archives: RB Honda

2024 F1 Grand Prix of the United States — Results & aftermath

Ferrari ambush rivals in Austin as Leclerc surges to victory, Sainz P2; Verstappen holds off Norris for last podium spot to extend Championship lead

After being flummoxed and frustrated by their lack of pace in Saturday’s Sprint race and Grand Prix Qualifying, Ferrari unlocked what they thought they had all along in Sunday’s United States Grand Prix at the beautiful, flowing Circuit of the Americas. Charles Leclerc came from P4 on the grid to overtake both the pole-sitting McLaren of Lando Norris and the P2 Red Bull of Max Verstappen, as well as his P3 teammate Carlos Sainz, on the exit of the steeply uphill Turn 1. Norris and Verstappen, with the tunnel vision of the two main Drivers’ Championship contenders, took their personal battle out wide there, with Norris taking evasive action into the runoff, allowing Leclerc to scamper through the open space unimpeded and instantly take the lead of this 56-lap contest on the opening lap. Verstappen recovered enough to keep Sainz at bay and maintain P2 but Norris lost enough momentum to relegate him to P4 behind the Spaniard’s Prancing Horse. The frantic action continued until not long after DRS was enabled  when Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, starting on the Hard Pirelli tires after a poor qualifying result saw him mired down in P17 on the grid, lost it heading into Turn 18 and beached his Silver Arrow in the gravel trap there. In an abrupt instant, the seven-time champ’s day came to a premature end and a Safety Car was deployed to retrieve the stricken Mercedes.

When racing resumed towards the end of Lap 5, Leclerc was just able to keep Verstappen’s charging Red Bull behind him and then attempt to build a gap from the point utilizing his SF24’s superior performance at this track. The car worked like a charm for the Monegasque and by Lap 20 he had pulled a whopping 8-second lead over the Dutch Master. The Ferrari pit wall then pulled their own successful strategy maneuver by calling in Sainz on Lap 22 for his first pit stop for fresh Pirellis, a swap off the opening-stint Mediums onto the durable Hards. The Scuderia braintrust were hoping the undercut here in Austin would be as powerful as their simulations, with Red Bull waiting until Lap 26 to pull Verstappen in. Indeed, it worked a treat for Sainz when Verstappen’s now Hard-shod car came out behind the Spaniard, Sainz having been able to put in some impressive laps on fresh rubber to build his advantage in the intervening laps. With enough of a cushion and perhaps anticipating that Verstappen might not be their main challenger this day, Leclerc came in a lap later for his own fresh Hards, emerging from the pits in P3, still ahead of his teammate and behind the yet-to-pit McLaren duo of Norris and Oscar Piastri .

McLaren continued to stay out over the next several laps, hoping that track position and running longer than their key rivals would give them the decisive fresh tire advantage in the race’s closing stanza. But when Leclerc made easy work of Piastri for P2 on Lap 31 Team Papaya new that it was time to pull the pin. Continue reading →

2024 F1 Grand Prix of Singapore — Qualifying results

Norris earns pole at Marina Bay in Red Flag-affected quali; Verstappen pips Hamilton for P2; Ferrari Q3 nightmare as Sainz crashes out, Leclerc time deleted

With Formula 1 entering the final third of its longest ever season and the Championship hunt as tight as it has been in several years, Saturday Qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix was as dramatic as it was potentially consequential. McLaren’s Lando Norris, desperate to close his gap to Red Bull’s points-leading Max Verstappen after a difficult weekend in Azerbaijan, was able to take the pole for Sunday’s race with a post-Red Flag one-lap flier late in Q3. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz had crashed out midway through Q3 in bizarre fashion during a pre-hot lap warm up, bringing out the Red Flag to retrieve the Spaniard’s stricken Prancing Horse form the final corner’s Tecpro barriers.  With a little over 8 minutes remaining when the session restarted, McLaren opted to send both their cars out first amongst the remaining nine to set times and not wait around for any potential track improvement by the time the clock ran out. It worked well for Norris, who hooked up a lap good enough for P1 but less well for teammate Oscar Piastri. Piastri, last week’s winner at Baku, had been in the top spot before the Sainz stoppage but the young Aussie could not improve and was eventually relegated to P5 by the session’s end.

After a multi-race qualifying drought, Verstappen returned to his excellent form under the pressure of the one-lap shootout, besting Mercedes Lewis Hamilton for P2 in a car that had looked nowhere for most of the session. Lining up alongside Norris on the front row, this race could come down to which driver gets away better at the very start, as passing at Marina Bay Street Circuit can be extremely difficult. Hamilton was nonetheless pleased with his P3 effort, the team unlocking pace in the car overnight after some mediocre performances in Friday’s two practice sessions. Silver Arrows stablemate George Russell was slightly less pleased with the unpredictable performance of his Pirelli tires but still  managed to set the fourth fastest time to earn a spot alongside Hamilton on Row 2. Nico Hulkenberg far out-performed his mediocre Haas and set a stunning time good enough for P6. Aston Martin’s savvy Fernando Alonso pulled the same trick to take a solid P7. RB Honda’s Yuki Tsunoda earned P8, while Ferrari suffered the indignity of not only Sainz having to start the race from P10 due to his crash but also seeing Charles Leclerc’s decent final lap deleted for a track limits violation, dropping the Monegasque to P9 and making for a very unhappy fifth-row duo for the Scuderia.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Singapore GP:

POS

NO

DRIVER

CAR

Q1

Q2

Q3

LAPS

1

4

Lando Norris

McLaren Mercedes

1:30.002

1:30.007

1:29.525

16

2

1

Max Verstappen

Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT

1:30.157

1:29.680

1:29.728

18

3

44

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes

1:30.393

1:29.929

1:29.841

16

4

63

George Russell

Mercedes

1:30.811

1:30.153

1:29.867

17

5

81

Oscar Piastri

McLaren Mercedes

1:30.258

1:29.640

1:29.953

18

6

27

Nico Hulkenberg

Haas Ferrari

1:30.724

1:30.150

1:30.115

18

7

14

Fernando Alonso

Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes

1:30.684

1:30.450

1:30.214

17

8

22

Yuki Tsunoda

RB Honda RBPT

1:30.716

1:30.289

1:30.354

17

9

16

Charles Leclerc

Ferrari

1:30.786

1:29.747

DNF

19

10

55

Carlos Sainz

Ferrari

1:30.670

1:30.108

DNS

16

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN beginning at 8 am here in the States. With tensions mounting  and time running short in the hunt for glory in 2024, as well as a very tight circuit where overtaking is very difficult and Safety Cars are de rigueur, look for loads of close quarters action between the top contenders, several of whom are out of position, in a desperate scramble for maximum points. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2024 F1 Grand Prix of Hungary — Results & aftermath

Piastri prevails for maiden win over Norris as McLaren dominate in Hungary; Hamilton earns P3 and 200th podium with savvy drive; Verstappen finishes a disgruntled P5

McLaren’s young Australian driver Oscar Piastri earned his maiden Formula 1 win at Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix, prevailing over his teammate Lando Norris after a first lap pass for the race lead and then a little help from team orders when some late race strategy calls reversed their positions. The McLaren 1-2 was their first since 2021 and confirmed the surging team’s status as the biggest threat to Red Bull and Max Verstappen’s hegemony. In a thoroughly intriguing and tense race at the high downforce Hungaroring, pit strategy came to the fore as the determining factor for the top contenders, and none more so than at team McLaren. With Norris perhaps hampered by a pre-race gremlin in his drive-by-wire throttle system, the pole-sitter saw himself out dragged by his teammate heading into Turn 1 to start the race, and Piastri made it stick for the early race lead. Piastri maintained de facto P1 after the first round of stops for McLaren despite the undercut of Norris boxing a lap earlier than him on Lap 18. But when they decided to repeat the earlier call to Norris in for his second tire stop on Lap 47 of this 70 lap contest, attempting to cover off the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, things within the team became quite tense. Hamilton had already made his second and final stop back on Lap 41, the Mercedes braintrust deciding to stay on the durable Hard Pirellis, hoping for an advantage in the final laps. On the other hand, Norris switched off the Hards and back onto the quicker Mediums, again undercutting his teammate Piastri, who came in one circuit later on Lap 48 to make the same tire switch. This time, Piastri was unable to maintain his advantage and emerged in P2 behind the now race-leading Norris. But the team quickly informed both drivers of their intentions to switch their positions in the closing laps to rectify Piastri’s startegy-induced disadvantage, since they had contravened the gentleman’s agreement within F1 teams giving pit priority to their leading driver. While Piastri struggled to catch up to his front-running teammate and Norris required repeated cajoling from the pit wall over the final 20 or so laps, he finally and somewhat grudgingly let Piastri by with two laps to go. In the end, it all worked out for team McLaren and reflected well on Norris as a team player able to accept the bigger picture amidst his own fierce ambition to win. And for Piastri, it was his Formula 1 dream come true and, he hopes, merely the first of many Grand Prix victories to come.

 

Hamilton drove exceptionally well en route to third place and his 200th career podium. The seven-time World Champion was able to push through his doubts about the Silver Arrows tire strategy of running the Mediums to Hards to Hards, contrary to the other contenders, who ran Medium-Hard-Medium, and make his final stint work well enough to hold off a furious podium charge by Verstappen. On Lap 63, in shades of 2021, the two came together when Verstappen made a lunge steaming into Turn 1, with Verstappen catching one of Hamilton’s wheels and being sent airborne. Luckily and despite coming down quite hard, there was no significant damage to the RB20 and no penalties were assessed to either driver by the stewards. But the contretemps fatally balked the furious Dutchman’s progress and he lost out not only to Hamilton but also Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who was waiting to pounce after running a solid if unspectacular race of his own and consequently nicked P4 from the Dutchman. Relegated to an uncharacteristic P5 at the finish, it capped off a difficult and tumultuous day for Verstappen and the Red Bull team, their ace pilot repeatedly berating the car’s performance, the strategy and generally carrying on in a mighty cranky mood throughout. Perhaps the pressure of what is now a genuine and formidable title challenge from McLaren is getting to the current reigning three-time champ. And while teammate Sergio Perez did well enough to recover to a solid P7 finish after another crash out early in qualifying and lousy start from the back of the grid, the fact that Perez very rarely races at the front to be utilized as Verstappen’s wingman these days is probably also hurting the team. It is certainly hurting Perez’s standing as the second Red Bull driver and, despite being re-signed earlier this season, the Mexican’s perplexingly poor performance since then has the rumor mill on possible in-season replacements in overdrive.

Leclerc’s somewhat fortunate P4 finish covered up the rather more mediocre pace of the Ferrari here, with Carlos Sainz finishing more like where the car deserved, in P6. Hamilton’s teammate George Russell also had to execute a Perez-like recovery drive after getting caught out in wet-dry conditions on Saturday and only qualifying a lowly P17. The Briton was able to salvage P8 and also grabbed the extra point for the fastest lap of the race. But it was still a pretty bitter day at the office for Russell as he watched his more decorated teammate once again ascend to the podium. Yuki Tsunoda kept it clean enough in his RB Honda to come home P9 and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll took the last point in P10.

Top 10 finishers of the Hungarian GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 70 1:38:01.989 25
2 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 70 +2.141s 18
3 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 70 +14.880s 15
4 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 70 +19.686s 12
5 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 70 +21.349s 10
6 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 70 +23.073s 8
7 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 70 +39.792s 6
8 63 George Russell MERCEDES 70 +42.368s 5
9 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB HONDA RBPT 70 +77.259s 2
10 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 70 +77.976s 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race, the last before the long summer break, is in but a week’s time — the Belgian Grand Prix at the fabled Spa-Francorchamps circuit in the Ardennes. The very long and sweeping Spa is an entirely different beast from the tight and twisty Hungaroring so, it remains to be seen if McLaren’s stunning improvements will also translate there or if Red Bull will finally have the room to again stretch what had been its supreme legs earlier in the season. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2024 F1 Grand Prix of Austria — Results & aftermath

Russell gifted win after Verstappen & Norris tangle; Piastri’s lone surviving McLaren claims P2, Sainz P3; Verstappen finishes in P5 but Norris DNFs

A funny thing happened on the way to another Max Verstappen romp at his team’s own Red Bull Ring. A day after dominating the Saturday Sprint and earning pole for the Austrian Grand Prix, the smart money was on Verstappen’s dominating ways here in Spielberg, where he has won four of the last six contests, continuing come race day. And for two thirds of this 71-lap contest, that appeared to be the case. But, with the race evolving into a graduate level true tire strategy test for the engineers on this short, high-deg circuit, things began shifting away from the race leading Red Bull man when both he and the P2 McLaren of Lando Norris were called in on Lap 51 for their second and ostensibly final pit stop for fresh rubber. Both doffed their used Hard Pirelli tires and changed back to the Mediums, the compound they had both started the race on. But Verstappen’s pit crew had an uncharacteristically slow 6.5 -second stop after battling with a sticky left rear wheel, while Norris’s time stationary was the more typically crisp 2.9-seconds. Upon exiting the pits line to stern, Verstappen now saw his previous seven-second lead evaporate to just a touch more than a second over the pursuing McLaren. And pursue Norris did, quickly getting into DRS range and harassing the Dutch race leader over a multi-lap period.  Under that fierce pressure, Verstappen began to be ever more aggressive in defense, leading to multiple complaints from Norris back to his race engineer that the Red Bull was consistently moving in reaction to his lunges. Norris himself had already received the Black & White flag for track limits and eventually received a 5-second penalty after running wide trying an overtake on Verstappen on Lap 59. But that didn’t tame Norris’s aggression and confidence at all. With the two front runners dicing for the race win in ever more intense and physical manner as the laps wound down, something had to give. And on Lap 64, the seemingly inevitable contretemps finally happened.

Norris dove to the inside seeming into the always treacherous off-camber Turn 3 looking to make the race winning overtake. But Verstappen appeared to squeeze the McLaren at the apex and Norris’s from wing made contact with Verstappen’s rear left, damaging the rim and cutting down the Red Bull’s tire almost immediately. Despite his stricken state, Verstappen would not yield and let Norris through into the lead and the two touched again, with Norris picking up a puncture of his own to the rear right. Both the Red Bull and McLaren had to limp back to the pits, but the Red Bull was able to do a standard tire change to Softs, while Norris’s McLaren had been so badly damaged at both the front and by the tire carcass flailing the rear bodywork that the crestfallen Englishman was forced to retire the car. While Verstappen received a 10-second time penalty after the stewards determined he was at fault for that fateful contact between the top two contenders, the Dutch points leader was able to salvage P5 from of the ordeal, as well as set the fastest lap of the Grand Prix for an extra point on those fresh Softs. Norris, meanwhile, scored no points with his DNF, his dreams of victory going from within his grasp to ashes in his mouth in mere moments. Previously on very friendly terms, the way things went down in Austria this Sunday and with Norris’s pointed post-race comments putting all of the blame on the Red Bull ace, there’s likely to be a fairly serious cooling off in Verstappen and Norris’s bromance.

The late race chaos all redounded to the benefit of Mercedes’ George Russell, who went from plodding along in a safe and solitary third place to blowing by the two injured cars ahead and taking the lead on that fateful Lap 64. To quote the Englishman, he was more than happy to “pick up the pieces” and to be fair to him, Russell had run cleanly and quickly enough to be in a position to do so. The Mercedes factory team were jubilant at their good fortune and neither Russell nor the Silver Arrows brass seemed inclined to give the great gift win back. Picking up his teammate, the second and sole surviving McLaren of Oliver Piastri was not able to close enough on Russell for a final lunge but did come home an outstanding P2, though the young Aussie may be ruing having his best lap in qualifying deleted for track limits and being forced to start P7. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz also enjoyed his gift trip to the podium after inheriting P3. While the second Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton finished a distant P4 to add to the team’s unexpectedly large points haul, the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc could never quite recover from an opening lap kerfuffle with Piastri and Sergio Perez that necessitated a costly and interminable time in the pits for a front wing change so early in the race. The Monegasque finished an unlucky P11 outside the points despite about a zillion pit stops.

While Perez had yet another underwhelming performance in the second Red Bull en route to a desultory P7 finish, it was something of a banner day for the Haas F1 team. Putting themselves in position to fully benefit from the misfortunes of others by being genuinely quick and having solid pit stops, Nico Hulkenberg rode the chaotic late race waves to an impressive P6 finish, while teammate Kevin Magnussen came home in P8. It was by far the best scoring day for Haas in 2024 and they’ll be hoping they can build on this improved performance at Silverstone next weekend. Rounding out the top ten, Daniel Ricciardo did yeoman’s work for RB Honda to finish P9, while Alpine’s Pierre Gasly ascended to P10 upon Norris’s retirement.

Top 10 finishers of the Austrian GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 63 George Russell MERCEDES 71 1:24:22.798 25
2 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 71 +1.906s 18
3 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 71 +4.533s 15
4 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 71 +23.142s 12
5 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 71 +37.253s 10
6 27 Nico Hulkenberg HAAS FERRARI 71 +54.088s 8
7 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 71 +54.672s 6
8 20 Kevin Magnussen HAAS FERRARI 71 +60.355s 4
9 3 Daniel Ricciardo RB HONDA RBPT 71 +61.169s 2
10 10 Pierre Gasly ALPINE RENAULT 71 +61.766s 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in but a week’s time, making it a grueling three Grand Prix in a row — the classic British GP from the legendary Silverstone airfield track. McLaren seem to have the pace to take it to Verstappen’s Red Bull but can they duke it out with the increasingly aggressive championship leader? And can once-mighty Mercedes take their improved performance and turn it into yet more good luck at their home circuit? Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2024 F1 Grand Prix of Monaco — Results & aftermath

Leclerc finally breaks through at home GP to take victory in Monaco; Piastri P2, Sainz P3 & Norris P4 in all-Ferrari vs McLaren competition

After years of bad luck, self-inflicted mistakes and ever-building pressure, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finally broke through to take a comprehensive victory at his home race at the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday. The Monegasque ran from pole to the checkers, maintaining first place the whole while on this legendarily difficult to overtake street circuit, where the top cars in the world have been racing since 1929. With qualifying of supreme importance here, it became a two team battle between Ferrari and McLaren, with the four drivers finishing where they started — Leclerc in P1 and his Scuderia stablemate Carlos Sainz in P3 and the two McLarens of Oscar Piastri in P2 and Lando Norris in P4. Red Bull were uncharacteristically not a factor here, as Max Verstappen held station to also come home where he started in P6. His unlucky teammate Sergio Perez was wiped out on the opening lap in a contretemps with the overly ambitious Haas of Kevin Magnussen that also took out the other Haas of Nico Hulkenberg when the melee had concluded.

That large multi-car shunt led to a lengthy Red Flag period necessitated by an extensive cleanup of the rather large debris field of broken Red Bull and Haas bits strewn across the entirety of Beau Rivage. It also enabled Sainz, who suffered a puncture after wheel to wheel contact dicing with Piastri at the start, to save his race. The Ferrari mechanics were able to perform repairs to the Spaniard’s car with no time penalty and the restart would be in the exact order of the race start due to the Red Flag being thrown without even a full first sector being run. Unfortunately, it also gave all the teams a free change of tires, which negated any future requirement to pit for a change of Pirelli compounds, as per the rules. This meant that the front four could run a slow, tire management pace without consequences or need for any strategy calls that might have spiced up the action. But that’s Monaco — a race that is usually greater on pageantry, pomp, historical significance and prestige than in actual racing action. Nevertheless, no one can take away the pure joy of Leclerc’s boyhood dream coming true in front of his hometown fans, including Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene, who both participated in the ebullient, champagne-drenched podium ceremonies for the local boy made good.

As he was after qualifying, Dutch points leader Verstappen ended up sandwiched between the two Mercedes, with George Russell coming home in P5 and Lewis Hamilton in P7. Even with both Verstappen and Hamilton being tow of the very few to pit to get off the Mediums and back onto the Hards for their final stints, it did nothing to really shake up their respective races. Rounding out the top ten, Yuki Tsunoda claimed P8 for RB Honda, Alexander Albon was P9 for Williams and Pierre Gasly claimed his first point of the year in P10. Gasly finishing at all was impressive considering he came together with teammate Esteban Ocon on the opening lap. Ocon went airborne and was knocked out of the race, earning the wrath of his team boss in an unusually harsh public rebuke.

Top 10 finishers of the Monaco GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 78 2:23:15.554 25
2 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 78 +7.152s 18
3 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 78 +7.585s 15
4 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 78 +8.650s 12
5 63 George Russell MERCEDES 78 +13.309s 10
6 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 78 +13.853s 8
7 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 78 +14.908s 7
8 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB HONDA RBPT 77 +1 lap 4
9 23 Alexander Albon WILLIAMS MERCEDES 77 +1 lap 2
10 10 Pierre Gasly ALPINE RENAULT 77 +1 lap 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in a fortnight’s time, as the teams cross the Atlantic again and return to wide open racing with the Canadian Grand Prix. Can Red Bull and Verstappen get their mojo back on the high speed straights of Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve or have Ferrari and McLaren truly made inroads to make this a genuine three-team championship battle? Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2024 F1 Grand Prix of Monaco — Qualifying results

Leclerc claims pole for hometown Grand Prix, pipping P2 Piastri; Sainz P3 on good day for Ferrari; Red Bull struggle with Verstappen only sixth fastest, Perez out in Q1

With the Memorial Day holiday weekend upon us, that means the return of the venerable Monaco Grand Prix, the crown jewel of the Formula 1 season. On this most unique of street circuits, the tightest and slowest on the F1 calendar, Red Bull’s usual straightline & DRS advantages were utterly neutralized during Saturday qualifying, as championship points leader Max Verstappen could do no better than P6 and Sergi Perez was unceremoniously bounced in Q1 with only the eighteenth fast time in the twenty car field. That left the door wide open for Ferrari and McLaren and the Scuderia’s Charles Leclerc came flying through it with a final lap good enough for pole at his home race. The Monegasque Leclerc bested the P2 McLaren of young Oliver Piastri, as well as his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz, who will start tomorrow’s race from P3 on the grid. Piastri’s McLaren stablemate Lando Norris, who is on his own fine run of form, will line up along Sainz on the second row in P4.

Mercedes had decent if not spectacular pace on the streets of the principality, with George Russell once again out-qualifying his more senior Silver Arrow teamate Lewis Hamilton, P5 to P7, effectively making the frustrated P6 Verstappen the meat in a Mercedes sandwich. Rounding out the top 10 qualifiers, Yuki Tsunoda was P8 for RB Honda, Alexander Albon hauled his Williams up to P9 and Pierre Gasly did well to hustle his usually poky Alpine into P10.

To 10 qualifiers for the Monaco GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:11.584 1:10.825 1:10.270 26
2 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:11.500 1:10.756 1:10.424 24
3 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:11.543 1:11.075 1:10.518 28
4 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:11.760 1:10.732 1:10.542 27
5 63 George Russell MERCEDES 1:11.492 1:10.929 1:10.543 28
6 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:11.711 1:10.745 1:10.567 28
7 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:11.528 1:11.056 1:10.621 28
8 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB HONDA RBPT 1:11.852 1:11.106 1:10.858 25
9 23 Alexander Albon WILLIAMS MERCEDES 1:11.623 1:11.216 1:10.948 29
10 10 Pierre Gasly ALPINE RENAULT 1:11.714 1:10.896 1:11.311 30

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live on ABC beginning at 9 am Eastern here in the States. With Red Bull on the back foot on a very difficult to pass circuit, this could end up a Ferrari-McLaren duel amongst the top four starters, with Leclerc inspired to fend off Piastri and take victory at his prestigious home race. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2024 F1 Grand Prix of Emilia-Romagna — Qualifying results

Verstappen holds off surging McLaren to take pole at Imola; Piastri qualifies P2 but served 3-place grid penalty, Norris P3; Leclerc P4, Sainz P5, disappointing the tifosi

Faced with the rapidly improving McLarens starting to fill up his rearview mirrors in 2024 and just a fortnight removed from being beaten out fair & square for the win in Miami by Lando Norris, Red Bull and Max Verstappen seemed on the back foot for much of the three practice sessions here at Imola for the return of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix after a year’s hiatus. But, as team Red Bull and their Flying Dutchman have done so often in their rise to the pinnacle of Formula 1 over the past three-and-a-half years, Verstappen pulled a flier out of the bag when it mattered most during Saturday qualifying. While it was a razor thin margin, Verstappen hooked up all three sectors of this old school 4.9 km track to pip McLaren’s Oscar Piastri by a minuscule .074 seconds. The second McLaren of Norris set the third fastest time in Q3 but will start alongside Verstappen on the front row after Piastri was penalized three grid spots for impeding Haas’s Kevin Magnussen during Q1. Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez had another perplexingly mediocre effort in quali and was bounced out in Q2 with only the eleventh quickest lap in that session.

There were a lot of expectations on Ferreri between some significant technical upgrades and being on home soil in front of the rabidly patriotic tifosi at the namesake Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari. But in qualifying, at least, it all ended up a bit disappointingly for the Scuderia, with Charles Leclerc only good enough for P4 and Sainz struggling even more so on his way to a distant P5, nearly three-tenths off his Monegasque teammate’s pace. Mercedes continued their underwhelming ways this year, with George Russell once again out-qualifying Lewis Hamilton, P6 to P8. Yuki Tsunoda split the Silver Arrows with an impressive final lap good enough for P7, while teammate Daniel Ricciardo continued to get to grips with the RB Honda en route to P9 on the grid. Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg made it into Q3 yet again and earned P10 for tomorrow’s GP start.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Emilia-Romagna GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:15.762 1:15.176 1:14.746 18
2 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:15.940 1:15.407 1:14.820 15
3 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:15.915 1:15.371 1:14.837 19
4 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:15.823 1:15.328 1:14.970 21
5 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:16.015 1:15.512 1:15.233 20
6 63 George Russell MERCEDES 1:16.107 1:15.671 1:15.234 18
7 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB HONDA RBPT 1:15.894 1:15.358 1:15.465 15
8 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:16.604 1:15.677 1:15.504 20
9 3 Daniel Ricciardo RB HONDA RBPT 1:16.060 1:15.691 1:15.674 15
10 27 Nico Hulkenberg HAAS FERRARI 1:15.841 1:15.569 1:15.980 21

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN2 beginning at 9 am Eastern here in the States. With McLaren hot on the heels of Red Bulls usually supreme pace and Ferrari desperate to produce a result on Italian soil, Verstappen could have his hands full, not to mention the abundant gravel traps here at Imola potentially provoking Safety Car & Red Flag periods to introduce further unpredictability. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2024 F1 Grand Prix of Miami — Results & aftermath

McLaren’s Norris earns maiden win in Miami with brilliant drive & a little luck; Verstappen relegated to rare P2 in fair fight, Leclerc P3 for Ferrari

McLaren’s Lando Norris drove the race of his life at the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday, using his ever improving skills as a driver, the new upgrades on his MCL38 chassis and little bit of Safety Car luck to earn his maiden win in Formula 1 in spectacular fashion. Having knocked on the door with seven podiums over the course of a F1 career that began in the middle of the 2018 season, the 24-year-old Briton finally kicked down that barrier to take the top step of the podium ahead of the usually imperious Red Bull of Max Verstappen by an impressive 7.612 seconds. After coming a cropper on the first lap of Saturday’s Sprint race, Norris excelled in Sunday’s GP, even though he started from back in P5 on the grid. With Verstappen looking fully in control and en route to another easy win midway through this 57-lap contest, and teammate Oscar Piastri actually seeming the quicker car in the early going, Norris made his own luck by running an extra-long first stint on his initial Medium Pirelli tires. While some contenders pitted under a brief Virtual Safety Car deployed on Lap 23 to retrieve a loose bollard from the chicane that Verstappen had knocked onto the track a few laps earlier, including Max himself, the two McLarens were not in position to take the risk of the VSC ending while in the pits and stayed out. It proved to be a prescient decision.

When the action resumed at the end of that lap, Verstappen had been shuffled back to P4, with Piastri now in the lead, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in P2 and Norris in third. Piastri and Sainz then pitted under green flag conditions on Lap 28, both going from Mediums to Hards under the favored one-stop strategy, with Norris then inheriting the lead and presumably attempting a one-lap overcut strategy. But that plan paid even bigger dividends when the Haas of Kevin Magnussen came together with the Williams of local boy Logan Sargeant on the very same lap, spinning Sargent backwards into the barriers and disabling his car. A Safety Car to retrieve the stricken Williams was quickly deployed on Lap 29, enabling Norris to duck into the pits for the cheap stop under the full course yellow a lap later. Norris then reemerged still in the lead, setting up a showdown for the victory with Verstappen when the SC ended in the latter part of Lap 32. The pace in the McLaren being up to the challenge, Norris held off Verstappen with aplomb at the rolling the restart and then, to the capacity crowd’s astonishment, began pulling away from the flying Dutchman. With the tension and anticipation of something truly special unfolding as the laps wound down, Norris kept pulling away from Verstappen, who for once could do nothing to get back up to Norris and make a real challenge. Perhaps the Red Bull’s front wing was damaged from hitting that bollard or perhaps the McLaren in Norris’s hands truly had the legs on the RB20 on this day — or maybe little of both. But when the checkers flew it was an ecstatic Norris with that all important first Formula 1 victory to put McLaren back in the winners circle for the first time since 2021 and relegate the runaway championship favorite Verstappen to a wholly unaccustomed P2.

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2024 F1 Grand Prix of Japan — Results & aftermath

Verstappen & Red Bull return to winning ways with easy win at Suzuka, Perez P2; Sainz prevails over teammate Leclerc, P3 to P4, in strong performances for Ferrari

Two weeks after a shocking mechanical DNF in Australia, Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team were back in top form for Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix. Verstappen led the race from pole twice, the second time after a Lap 2 Red Flag, and gapped his game teammate Sergio Perez each time, steadily putting enough in the bank to come across the finish line of this 53-lap contest over twelve and a half seconds ahead of P2 Perez. For the Red Bull team, it was back to their usual recent supremacy at this highly technical circuit that really seems to suit their cars, making it three out of the last four Japanese GP that they’ve finished 1-2 at the figure eight Suzuka Circuit. For good measure, Verstappen also ended up setting the race’s fastest lap for the bonus point and a maximum of 26 on the day. It was still an encouraging day for Perez, who had to make several solid overtakes against other contenders after his two pit stops in order to secure that valuable second place and hopefully bodes well for the Mexican veteran’s renewed sense of confidence in the RB20.

Once it became clear that Red Bull were simply the class of the field again, the more intriguing  part of the race came down to who would score the last podium position and how the rest of the top ten would shake out. Ferrari once again looked like the closest thing to competition that Red Bull may have this season and the Scuderia braintrust effectively split their strategies between their drivers, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. With Sainz, the last race winner in Melbourne, qualifying P4 but Leclerc mired down in P8 after a subpar quali effort on Saturday, the team went with a conventional tire strategy for Sainz and a roll of the dice for Leclerc. Sainz ran the standard two-stopper, going Medium Pirellis to Medium to Hard to finish the race, while Leclerc ran a long first stint on Mediums all the way to Lap 27 and then took his only set of Hards to the end. This not only allowed Sainz to better his starting position by one and get the Spaniard on the podium with a P3 finish but vaulted Leclerc, who drove superbly to hold onto that initial set of Mediums, all the way up to an eventual P4 finish. While Leclerc couldn’t hold off his teammate for that last podium spot late in the race, the Monegasque still prevailed over both McLarens on the day, the team that is really Ferrari’s true rival in race pace. So, the brass at Maranello should be well pleased by a rather excellent two race stretch, with Sainz and Lecerlc one-two in Australia and now three-four in Japan.

For McLaren, it ended up being more of a salvage what you can kind of day rather than competing for the podium, as the team have more recently come to expect. The race pace of the cars was definitely not as strong as the Prancing Horses here and Norris was easy meat for Sainz when the Spaniard passed him for third place on Lap 46, with Norris having locked up the prior lap. Similarly, McLaren teammate Oliver Pisatri also suffered with long run handling when he ran wide on the final lap heading into Turn 16, which enabled Mercedes’ George Russell to steal P7 from the young Aussie. While not a disaster by any means, with Norris finishing P4 and Piastri P8, team McLaren will be looking to improve when they unload in China in two weeks, such are the higher expectations they now have with their MCL38’s usual solid performance and their two young pilots’ excellent pace.

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso tried to keep Piastri in position to defend himself from Russell’s ambitions, the wily Spanish veteran keeping the McLaren within DRS range and using Piastri as a blocker. In the end, Russell ran out of laps to make any headway on Alonso and the two-time champ scored Aston’s only points on the day with a fine P6 finish. With Russell locked in at P7 and Silver Arrows teammate Lewis Hamilton only able to take P9 when the checkers flew, there had to be some debate about the Mercedes pit wall’s decision to attempt a one-stopper after both switched to Hards from the Mediums under the Red Flag conditions. In the end, it probably wasn’t decisive either way even though the team was forced to bail on that strategy, with Russell getting rid of his aged Hards on Lap 38 in favor of Mediums to end the race and Hamilton following suit two laps later. Mercedes simply lack the pace of Ferrari, McLaren and certainly Red Bull so, Russell making that late race pass on Piastri was actually bettering expectations. There remains a lot of work to do for the once mighty Silver Arrows if they are going to get back to challenging for podiums let alone wins.

RB Honda’s Yuki Tsunoda took the last point in P10 at his home race to the delight of his countrymen in the stands, a fine result for any Japanese driver and another indication that the talented Tsunoda is showing his improving skills on a weekly basis, even in a less than elite car. He was also aided in that eventual good result by a cracking pit stop by his mechanics on his final tire change, the RB beating out four other runners who had also stopped at the exact same time, netting him crucial track position that Tsunoda then converted into that valuable P10.

Top 10 finishers of the Japanese Grand Prix:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 53 1:54:23.566 26
2 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 53 +12.535s 18
3 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 53 +20.866s 15
4 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 53 +26.522s 12
5 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 53 +29.700s 10
6 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 53 +44.272s 8
7 63 George Russell MERCEDES 53 +45.951s 6
8 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 53 +47.525s 4
9 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 53 +48.626s 2
10 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB HONDA RBPT 52 +1 lap 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in two weeks’ time — the return of the Chinese Grand Prix form the Shanghai International Circuit for the first time since 2019. Will this circuit be any less conducive to the seemingly unstoppable force that is Red Bull-Verstappen? Hope to see you then to find out!

2024 F1 Grand Prix of Japan — Qualifying results

Red Bull lock out front row at Suzuka as Verstappen barely pips game Perez; McLaren’s Norris gets the better of Ferrari’s Sainz for P3

Two weeks removed from his shocking early race mechanical DNF in Melbourne, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen seemed determined to reimpose his usual air of inevitability during Saturday Qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix. Making an unusually early appearance on the F1 calendar and amidst cool and cloudy conditions at the fabled Suzuka International Racing Course, the Red Bulls were clearly the class of the field throughout practice and then further hammered home that fact once quali began in earnest. And this time, Verstappen’s teammate Sergo Perez also came to play, putting pressure on Max to up his game in order to earn the pole. In the end, the flying Dutchman succeeded, but only by beating out Perez by a scant .006 seconds, one of their closest qualifying duals since they’ve been Red Bull stablemates. With the RB20s race pace dominance readily apparent so far in 2024, fans will be hoping that Perez can hound Verstappen in tomorrow’s race with just as much elan as the veteran Mexican displayed today in qualifying.

Below those top two standouts, it was a fascinating battle for positions three through ten on the grid, featuring large gaps between teammates in ostensibly identical equipment. This often happens at the highly technical, figure-eight Suzuka Circuit, where hooking up a constant lap through all three sectors is highly demanding even to talented Formula 1 drivers. Excelling the best in a car not named Red Bull was McLaren’s Lando Norris, who bettered last race’s winner, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, P3 to P4. Still flying high from his amazing Aussie GP victory a fortnight ago, Sainz did take it to his Scuderia teammate, Charles Leclerc, who was forced to burn an extra set of Soft Pirellis to secure his transfer out of Q1. Leclerc was thereby disadvantaged by a lack of extra fresh sets in Q3 and could only run one hot lap, which netted him a lowly P8 starting position when all the other times were counted in the final session. Norris’s McLaren teammate and birthday boy Oscar Piastri faced no such tire disadvantage but was only able to qualify P6 after running his full Q3 program.

Fernando Alonso was the lone Aston Martin in the top ten, wringing the neck of his car to will himself all the way up to P5. This put the veteran two-time champ not only ahead of Piastri but also both Mercedes. After a disastrous zero points outing in Melbourne a fortnight ago, the Silver Arrows are still chasing pace, with Lewis Hamilton only able to mange a P7 time but still well ahead of his bewildered teammate, George Russell, who ended up mired down in P9. RB Honda’s Yuki Tsunoda delighted his countrymen in the stands by slotting in at P10 for his home race.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Japanese GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:28.866 1:28.740 1:28.197 12
2 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 1:29.303 1:28.752 1:28.263 12
3 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:29.536 1:28.940 1:28.489 13
4 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:29.513 1:29.099 1:28.682 12
5 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 1:29.254 1:29.082 1:28.686 12
6 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:29.425 1:29.148 1:28.760 12
7 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:29.661 1:28.887 1:28.766 15
8 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:29.338 1:29.196 1:28.786 12
9 63 George Russell MERCEDES 1:29.799 1:29.140 1:29.008 15
10 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB HONDA RBPT 1:29.775 1:29.417 1:29.413 18

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN beginning at 1AM Eastern Sunday morning here in the States. With Suzuka looking uniquely suited to this year’s iteration of Red Bull, it should come down to an intra-team battle at Red Bull for the win. Can Perez finally make his mark on the 2024 campaign and get back to challenging Verstappen’s supremacy? Look forward to seeing you then to find out!