The second qualifying session of the season is now complete, with a few shocks along the way, not forgetting that going into Qualifying it’s already confirmed Charles Leclerc has a 10 place grid penalty…
It was Sergio Perez who took his second pole position of his F1 career, at the same place he took his first! Charles Leclerc managed to grab second, but after his penalty is applied will be starting 12th. And to round out the top three is Fernando Alonso.
The full top 10 are: P1: Perez, P2: Leclerc, P3: Alonso, P4: Russell, P5: Sainz, P6: Stroll, P7: Ocon, P8: Hamilton, P9: Piastri and P10: Gasly.
Lando Norris is not having a good time at the moment, qualified P19… this however was not due to a reliability issue. He hit the wall on the last corner and it damaged the car. However, his teammate was on another level, Oscar managed to get into Q3 for the first time in only just two races, a much better place than they were last time out in Bahrain. But a big well done, to the Aussie.
Now onto the bigger shock of qualifying, Max Verstappen out in Q2, and starting 15th. During Q2, Max had a driveshaft problem and that consequently ended his qualifying session, as there was only 5 minutes left and Red Bull were not able to fix/figure out the problem so quick.
A better qualifying for the Alpine’s, Gasly starting 9th and Ocon 6th, hopefully they can capitalise on this and grab points, especially Ocon after not grabbing any in Bahrain.
Predictions-
My top five for the race are: P1: Perez, P2: Alonso, P3: Sainz, P4: Russell, P5: Stroll.
It will be interesting to see how both Max and Charles will do going through the field working their way up, but will they both manage to stay out of trouble? And grab some points so its not as damaging for the later part of the season.
I can see some safety cars happening this race as well as VSC, this may shake some things up depending on when they are in the race, so it could shake things up a little…
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