Things don’t get much more comfortable than Max Verstappen’s pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Verstappen had been almost a full second quicker than everyone else after his first lap of Q3, a margin so large that he could abort his second flyer and still hold pole. He didn’t even needed to have bothered.
The half-second advantage he was left with over Carlos Sainz flattered the Ferrari while obscuring the full magnitude of Red Bull Racing’s true performance.
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It was the culmination of a practice clean sweep at a circuit that was always going to play to the RB19’s strengths through medium and high-speed corners, where its efficient aerodynamics allows it to really stretch its legs.
“Overall the whole weekend has been really enjoyable to drive the car,” Verstappen said. “It was really hooked up.
“Of course you always try to find little improvements on the car, but it’s been really good.
“Going into Q3 I knew there was quite a bit of potential left in the car, so I could finally push it to the limit in that first run, and the car was really quick.”
It was pleasure and pain in the Red Bull Racing garage, though, after Sergio Pérez bumbled his way to 11th on the grid.
Pérez had almost got himself eliminated from Q1, when the track was at its greasiest after afternoon rain, but he was barely better for the lifeline after scraping through in 15th.
His first Q2 lap was slow. His second lap saw him wide and into the gravel at turn 5. He then had to embark immediately on his third lap, but with dirty tyres and a scuffed car he wasn’t capable of stringing together a competitive time.
“Once we lost it, the tyres were too warm and I couldn’t get them back to a good temperature window. I just didn’t have the grip on my final lap,” he said. “It was a shame.”
It was his second consecutive qualifying flop after Monaco and his third of the season after crashing out of Saturday in Australia, and it sets him up for more championship pain on Sunday.
But considering Red Bull Racing’s level of superiority at this circuit, the Mexican’s sights can at least be set high.
In Saudi Arabia Verstappen climbed from 15th to second, and in Australia Pérez recovered from the back to fifth.
“It is frustrating, but it’s still not Monaco,” Pérez said. “It’s a race where we can race and get a lot of points tomorrow.”
It’d wouldn’t be a surprise — in fact it’s expected — that he’ll finish second. But that still means he’ll be 45 points off the title lead, having burnt another opportunity to close the gap.
AT LEAST IT’S CLOSER BEHIND VERSTAPPEN
While the gap from Verstappen to Sainz was 0.462 seconds, the spread from fifth to seventh was just 0.349 seconds in a super-tight pole shootout. The rest of the top 10 almost certainly would’ve been closer too had they had more than one set of new soft tyres at their disposal and has Fernando Alonso not had a damaged car.
Six different constructors will occupy the top six places on the grid, and seven teams are in the top 10.
It’s very unusual for Barcelona, where teams have such a deep understanding of the track that the cars tend to line up exactly where they belong in terms of pure pace. It’s not rare to see teammates alongside each other.
Yet this weekend there will be no teammates sharing a row on the grid, and only the AlphaTauri teammates qualified in successive positions.
Lando Norris, who was an excellent an unexpected third, is a prime example.
“I’m shocked to be here,” he said. “The whole field just seems very close this weekend.
“The distance to Red Bull from a midfield point of view is closer than it has been … just everyone — the Haas, the Alpines, the Astons and then us, I guess we’re the surprise today.”
Sainz said he also felt the pressure of a closer field, but the Spaniard posited that Ferrari’s underperformance has played a role in closing up the teams behind Verstappen.
“Honestly I don’t think it’s the best track for Ferrari — a lot of high-speed corners, and at the moment those are where we are struggling the most and are our main point of focus,” he said.
But he also thought the significant pace of car development in the last fortnight could be a contributor.
“I think it is getting a bit tight, especially since Monaco,” he said. “I don’t know if people started bringing upgrades … [but] I think maybe the field is compressing.
“I think also a short lap — like in Monaco and here [it is] 1 minute 12 seconds — makes it look even tighter.”
All that said, the gaps tend to grow on Sunday, so it won’t be until after the race that we might be able to say whether the teams really are getting closer together.
MERCEDES COLLIDE IN AWKWARD ‘MISCOMMUNICATION’
Mercedes suffered a moment of high-profile embarrassment that ended in frustration on one side of the garage when teammates Lewis Hamilton and George Russell collided near the end of Q2.
In what could have been a major high-speed wreck, Russell squeezed Hamilton against the left-hand wall down the front straight at more than 300 kilometres per hour as both attempted to start their final flying laps.
Fortunately Hamilton got away with just a broken front wing, while Russell cost himself only a bit of momentum to start his lap — though on a difficult day for the younger Briton, he couldn’t string together a time good enough for the top 10, and he was knocked out in 12th.
“It’s all down to miscommunication, because drivers in the same team don’t want to crash into each other on their final lap of qualifying,” Toto Wolff explained. “It shouldn’t happen.”
It’s extremely unusual for teammates to start their flying laps together, but this was down to Russell having had to abort his previous lap due to a mistake, putting him in Hamilton’s path.
Russell didn’t realise Hamilton was then behind him. Hamilton, meanwhile, thought Russell was giving him a slipstream.
“So I went to the left,” Hamilton said. “And he started coming back across. So just a misunderstanding.”
Russell was conciliatory in the aftermath.
“It wasn’t either ones fault,” he said. “We need to talk internally how that happened because two teammates that should never happen.”
The team is confident both cars can score points on Sunday, with the car typically stronger in race conditions than in qualifying.
DISASTER FOR LECLERC AS PIT-LANE START BECKONS
Charles Leclerc qualified a horrific 19th for Ferrari but will probably suffer an even worse start from pit lane following a mystifyingly slow qualifying afternoon.
Leclerc, the pole-getter in Spain last season, never looked a chance to break out of Q1 and ended up slowest of all but rookie Logan Sargeant.
“I am quite confident there is something that is not the way it should be,” he said afterwards, having complained that something was wrong at his rear axle during the session. “There was definitely something strange.
“I nearly lost it during the red flag and I was at 70 kilometres an hour and there was just no warning.
“The left-hand corners were really, really bad with the rear-right [corner].
“We will have to check, but I would be very surprised if we don’t find something on the car.”
The Monegasque is adamant his car was suffering a mechanical problem, the fix for which would likely require him to start from pit lane.
And even if repairs don’t break parc fermé conditions, Ferrari would likely want to haul Leclerc in for a pit lane start anyway to give him the optimal set-up to make up ground in the race.
“It’s going to be an uphill weekend, to be honest,” he said. “On the other hand, it’s a track where we will see quite a few stops, degradation is going to be a big thing tomorrow, so if we do a good job on that, we are going to improve our chances.”
A clever play at strategy will be key to his recovery — though that’s maybe not what Ferrari fans want to hear considering the team’s form on the pit wall.
McLAREN REALISTIC DESPITE STANDOUT QUALIFYING
McLaren got both cars into Q3 for only the second time this season, with both Norris and Oscar Piastri capitalising on the MCL60’s affinity for this circuit and the cool, greasy conditions.
Norris was an impressive third, while Piastri will start ninth, up from 10th thanks to Pierre Gasly’s six-place penalty for twice impeding cars in qualifying.
But it could’ve been better still for Piastri had it not been for one mistake.
“I broke a little bit too late for turn 10, missed the apex a little bit and then hit a wet part of the track, and it was game over from there,” he said. “Pretty frustrated with myself, in all honesty. It was a good session until then.”
Had he replicated his Q2 lap, he’d have been seventh quickest and starting sixth. Had he improved by the 0.15 seconds he was up before his mistake, another two places on top of that might’ve been up for grabs.
But team boss Andrea Stella is cautious about reading too much into the strong qualifying pace, noting that three much faster cars — Leclerc, Russell and Pérez — are out of position, as well as that conditions had been favourable on Saturday.
“I think today‘s conditions were pretty much ideal for McLaren,” he said.
“We have a combination of cold conditions in which certainly we seem to be taking advantage by good characteristics on warming up the tyres.
“Also the fact that the new softs here deliver a lot of grip, at least when you have good warm up, like we seem to have.
“This is also one reasons why we are very prudent and realistic about the performance tomorrow, because the benefit of having such a level of grip only happens on new softs for a single lap.
“Tomorrow will be much, much less grip in any condition during the race, either because you are on used soft or on medium or hard tyres.
“We are realistic for tomorrow, but we hope we confirm two cars in the points.”
