Official F1 Journal Sprint Saturday Round Up

Sprint Shoot Out

Q1

All cars started on the intermediate tyres.
From his first run you could see Hamilton was enjoying the wet weather conditions. Most of the grid went out straight away but others like Norris, Alonso, Hulk & Magnussen waited till the end of the session to set a competitive time. It worked for Norris and Alonso but sadly the HAAS cars couldnt put the lap toether when they needed and Magnussen got caught in a lot of traffic to finish his flying lap ruining his chances and making him question  the teams choice of when they sent him out. 
Leclerc, Sainz, Albon, Sargeant, Gasly and Ocon set great laps that got them safely through, Max went 1st, with Hamilton 2nd & Alo 3rd.
​

Q1 Result 

1-VER       2-HAM
3-ALO       4-ALB
5-PER       6-SAI
7-LEC       8-OCO
9-SAR      10-GAS
11-PIA      12-NOR
13-RIC     14-STR
15-RUS    16-TSU
17-BOT     18-MAG
19-ZHO     20- HUL 

Q2

Q2 started with everyone on the intermediate tyre but it was very much a case of everyone just waiting for the right moment to switch to the slicks. Lewis again was loving the conditions and was setting very fast laps along with the Mclaren rookie Oscar Piastri who has been showing his pace at Spa this weekend. With 4 minutes to go Logan Sargeant touched a tyre over the curb, spinning his Williams and then catching it beautifully stopping what could have been a big moment for the American. Lance Stroll was the first man to brave the slick tyres and very rapidly realized it was to soon and not only destroyed his qualifying but took his team mate and both Willams drivers with him, none of whom had set a time yet in this qualifying session. Max topped the times again with Hamilton and Perez joining him in the top 3. 

Q2 Results 

1-VER          2-HAM
3-PER          4-GAS
5-LEC          6-PIA
7-SAI           8-NOR
9-PER         10-RUS
11-RIC         12-ALB
13-SAR        14-STR
​15-ALO

Q3

Q3 Started with all drivers on slick tyres and again Hamilton was showing how much he enjoys these conditions by starting the times going top, beating even Verstappens first run, the Mclaren didnt look very competitive after their first run especially with the pace the 2 Apline's were showing on their maiden laps and the Ferrari's both looking like they were building to something special like the day before. But it was Piastri for Mclaren who would take the fight to Max narrowly missing out on beating the reigning champion  by just 0.011 of a second, Sainz finished 3rd followed by his team mate Leclerc, Lando Norris, Gasly, Hamilton, Perez, Ocon & Russell to complete the top 10.
​

Q3 Result

1-VER          2-PIA
3-SAI            4-LEC
5-NOR          6-GAS
7-HAM          8-PER
9-OCO         10-RUS

Sprint Race Round Up

A large storm passing over the circuit made the track unraceable for a fair amount of time so the start of the Sprint race was delayed. The FIA chose to do a total of 4 formation laps behind the safety car(shortening the race to just 11 laps) with the whole grid to do this on full wet tyres, but even before the timer started Sainz was asking if he had to cross the line before pitting for inters or could he follow the Safety car in and change tyres straight away. This was a sentiment shared by much of the grid and as the safety car dived into the pits and Max Verstappen swept around turn 19 to lead the grid across the line to start the race, half of them dived into the pits. Piastri was the first man in from 2nd followed by Sainz from 3rd, ALO, HAM, PER, GAS, RIC, STR, ALB, BOT & HUL also pit at the same time. Everyone else stayed out and completed a lap with Max Verstappen, but this turned out to be the wrong choice because as Max left the Redbull pitbox stuck on his pitlane speed limiter,  Piastri went screaming past him at racing speed to take the lead. 

It didnt work out for everyone though, Norris had a slow stop and lost out to Hamilton, George Russell lost out, but there where some big winners like Pierre Gasly who with a combination of great team call, fast stop and great out lap took himself from 6th to 3rd, Hamilton who gained 2 places to be in 5th and Perez was up 4 places to 4th.
Lap 3 Alonso drops the rear and the car spins and ends up resting in the barrier, stuck in a gravel trap at Pouhon. This brought out the Safety car, which lasted 3 lap and by lap 6 we where racing again with Piasrti in the lead.

On the restart Yuki Tsunoda out braked himself going into the final chicane and ended up going sideways past the grand stand but recovered to continue. Piastri's lead was short lived, after a great restart from the rookie who had never lead a lap in F1 let alone a restart, Max got a great run on Piastri  up the Kemmel Straight and the move was made by  the Le Combes chicane. It wasnt just the leader making moves, Lewis Hamilton & Perez were having a great battle till they came together leaving a gaping hole in the side pod of the Redbull meaning he was a sitting duck for the next cars down the road of Sainz and Leclerc.  Finally after going into the gravel battling with Norris, Redbull retired the car on lap 8. Hamilton would later receive a 5 second penalty for the coming together dropping him from 4th -7th at the end of the race. 

Lap 8 and Ricciardo was up to 8th and Gasly was still going strong with a rapid Lewis Hamilton starting to catch him fast. Both Mercedes seemed to come alive at the end of the race as Russell was carving his was through the field over taking Ocon & Ricciardo to take the last points paying position. But despite catching Gasly and having a good go at overtaking it wasn't lewis' day and Gasly held off to get 3rd on the road and his first podium with the Alpine team since joining them for the 2023 season, made especially sweet by the 2 double DNFs the team suffered at Silverstone & Hungary.

​9Max won the race by a respectable 6.677seconds, with Piastri in 2nd  4 seconds ahead of Gasly in 3rd.
It was a brilliant race with great racing right the way down the grid.
Well done to Piastri and the whole Mclaren team and huge congratulations to Gasly and the Alpine team on that brilliant result.
​
On to the Feature race tomorrow 

Sprint Race Result

1- VER        2-PIA
3-GAS         4- SAI
5-LEC         6- NOR
7-HAM        8-RUS
9-OCO       10- RIC 
11-STR       12-ALB
13-BOT       14-MAG
15-SAR       16-ZHO
17-HUL        18-TSU
DNF'S
19- PER       20- ALO



Joanna Blackmore 
​Writer @ F1 Journal