The first sprint race of the season is complete and what a race it was! Max Verstappen beat Charles Leclerc to the checkered flag. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing as Charles got the better start and led for 19 laps.
With the top 8 now scoring points in the sprint, we wasn’t sure if there would be much on track action, but it is safe to say we were not disappointed.
The top 10 are- P1: Verstappen, P2: Leclerc, P3: Perez, P4: Sainz, P5: Norris, P6: Ricciardo, P7: Bottas, P8: Magnussen, P9: Alonso and P10: Schumacher.
First up, Mr Zhou Guanyu was our only DNF, he made contact with Pierre Gasly which saw Zhou go off at Turn 9. Pierre also picked up damage and needed to pit for a new front wing and tyres. Zhou will be starting from the pitlane as his pitcrew needed to work on the car during parc fermme conditions.
Both Perez and Sainz had a lot of making up to do before the Sprint even started and I think its safe to say that they both put in the work to do damage limitation in the sprint, ready for the main event tomorrow.
Yuki was the saving grace for Alpha Tauri as he made up 4 places, giving him that advantage tomorrow for the race.
Disappointing sprint for the king of sprint, Alonso. He lost 4 positions during the sprint and that may be to his tyres not heating up enough and he was just a sitting duck. Hopefully we see more from him tomorrow.
Predictions-
Top five for tomorrows race is- P1: Leclerc, P2: Verstappen, P3: Sainz, P4: Norris, and P5: Ricciardo.
Now, seeing as Mick has the perfect opportunity to score points as he starts in the top 10, I am hoping this happens. It does look like he is comfortable in the car on this track so lets hope he can do it.
A possible chance for points for Russell, Tsunoda and Vettel. There could be a chance of rain tomorrow so that could shake up the order quite some what and then that would give the 3 drivers I just mentioned to move up a few spots.
Times for tomorrow-
Feature Race F3- 7:50am (BST)
Feature Race F2- 9:20am (BST)
F1 Race- 14:00pm (BST).
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