Official F1 Journal Sprint Saturday Round Up- COTA

Welcome to the F1 Journal Sprint Saturday Round Up. It was the 5th of 6 Sprint Saturdays for the season and COTA did not disappoint. The weather was perfect, the crowd on top form and the teams were ready to capitalize on extra points available from the Sprint 'Race'.
Over night and almost completely covertly the FIA made changes to the track after drivers raised concerns in the post qualifying drivers meeting. The white lines that define the track limits where made thicker on the exit Turns 9, 12 & 19, making it easier for drivers to stay within them, not a popular move among fans and pundits when the changes were noticed during the Sprint Shootout with Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle likening the changes to widening the goal in a football match because the players complained they kept hitting the post but ultimately we saw just as many track limits infringements despite the changes. 

Sprint Shootout- Dry 

Sprint Shootout 1- Medium Tyre

All cars went straight out in the first round of the Sprint shootout, with Hamilton setting the fastest time first but being quickly beaten by the 2 Ferrari's and Lando Norris. 
Max waited till just under 5 minutes to go to set his lap, going purple in Sector 1 & 2 and beat Leclerc's fastest time by 0.305 seconds. 
2 minutes to go and Alonso was the driver at risk and Bottas, Magnussen, Ricciardo, Stroll & Sargeant were in the drop zone but all were on fast laps that could save themselves.
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Albon jumped up the times to 3rd with a mighty lap, Stroll saved himself from knockout going to the top 10, Alonso went upto 6th, Leclerc pulled a brilliant lap out of the bag that was just 0.002 seconds off the top time of Verstappen, Hulkenberg could only manage 14th and was quickly dropped back into the ellimination zone by Ricciardo who managed 15th and got into SQ2 on his first race weekend back after his hand injury at Zandvoort. Piastri was struggling on his Medium tyres but just got through in 14th. Leaving Hulkenberg, Magnussen, Bottas, Tsunoda & Sargeant out in the first round of the Sprint shoot out.​

During Sprint shoot out 1 we got word that Russell had impeded Leclerc and on review of the footage the FIA agreed and after the session had concluded the Mercedes Driver was handed a 3 place penalty for his blocking of Leclerc. When talking about the incident later Russell admitted he had thought Leclerc was on an outlap and was fighting him for the best position for their fast laps and had deliberately got in the way of  the Ferrari not knowing he was on a flying lap but was very apologetic in hindsight.  

Sprint Shootout 1 Result 

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

Sprint Shootout 2- Medium Tyre

Sprint shoot out 2 and unlike the session before it was a slow stream of cars leaving the garage, the Mclaren's went straight out along with the Ferrari's, Redbull's and the lone Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton while team mate Russell stayed in the garage to have a wheel brow breakage fixed before joining the others on track. 
Verstappen and Perez were the first to set times and Perez straight away was +0.6 behind his 3 time world champion team mate. Both Ferrari's also went faster than Perez, followed by Norris who went 4th, Piastri managed 6th on the first runs only narrowly faster than Championship rival Stroll in the Aston Martin. Daniel Ricciardo was going well in his Alpha Tauri and was optimistic he could get through to Q3 on his return to F1.  

2 minutes to go and we saw a very rare but none the less spectacular mistake from Max Verstappen who took to much curb @ turn 9 which unsettled the rear of the car, which put the Redbull into a full spin before Verstappen caught the car without hitting the wall. it was a lucky/skilful catch that could have ended the champions Sprint shootout.
1 minute to go and the drivers at risk were Albon, Ocon, Hamilton, Gasly and Ricciardo and everyone was on track except Verstappen who felt safe with his time. 

Albon pulled it out of the bag right at the end of the session going 10th and knocking Fernando Alonso out, Stroll couldn't manage to get out of the bottom 5 finishing 14th and Ricciardo despite trying his absolute hardest on his return from injury could only manage 11th which to us was a great achievement considering his hand injury. Ocon just couldn't put his last lap together and was out while his Apline team mate Gasly continued on to Sprint shootout 3.

Sprint Shootout 2 Result 

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

Sprint Shootout 3- Soft Tyre

Round 3 of the Sprint Shoot out and nobody was in a rush to go out, a combination of saving tyres for the Sprint later in the day and the Grand Prix today all the team chose to only do 1 run to get pole. 
3.5 minutes to go and Max made his move and was the trigger for the rest to follow and as the final 10 cars made their way onto the track it really was anyone pole to take. Leclerc has been fast all weekend, Hamilton loves this track and feels at home here, you couldnt count out the Mclaren's on the Soft tyres and  Gasly & Albon always have the potential to put the cat among the pidgeons 

Verstappen went out and started going purple in sector 1, which was beaten by Norris who was on a great lap and only fell short to Max's 1.34.5 by a tenth of a second. Piastri went 3rd but was quicky beaten by Leclerc who went 2nd fastest ahead of both Mclaren's. Albon's time was good enough for 5th but he was pushed back by Hamilton's mega lap putting him 3rd for the Sprint. Perez managed 6 but like Albon was pushed down by others  faster times and Russell just couldn't string together a lap good enough for better than 8th.

The Shootout ended with Verstappen on pole, a very happy Charles Leclerc in 2nd following his Pole position for today's Grand Prix, Hamilton was very happy with 3rd, Norris would start 4th for the Sprint and unlike many qualifying session we have seen this year the top 4 here were covered by just a tenth of a second. Piastri beat Sainz for 5th, Perez started 7th and despite Russell setting a time goo enough for 8th his penalty for impedig Leclerc in the Sprint shootout 1 moved him down to 11th and promoted Albon, Gasly and Ricciardo t0 8th, 9th & 10th. 

Sprint Shootout 3 Result 

1 VER 
2 LEC 
3 HAM
4 NOR 
5 PIA
6 SAI
7 PER
8 RUS*
9 ALB  
10 GAS
* RUS 3 place penalty impeding starts 11th 
 ALB, GAS & RIC promoted to 8th, 9th & 10th

Sprint 'Race'- 

The 5th of our 6 2023 Sprint 'races' started with the whole grid on the Medium tyre with exception of Carlos Sainz who  made the questionable choice to start on the Softs.
It was an aggressive start all the way down the grid Verstappen crossing the track to cover off Leclerc who made a great start but lost 2nd to Hamilton in turn 2 after going for the move on Verstappen in turn 1, Sainz moved over on Piastri and made contact with the front left tyre of the rookies Mclaren. Alonso & Stroll had a great battle off the start with Ricciardo and continued the tag team racing with Hulkenberg as they went 3 a breast into turn 5 with Stroll getting ahead of his 3 time world champion team mate who had a tough opening lap of the race and was down in 15th 
Sainz capitalized on his Soft tyres as he over took Norris for 4th while the sister Mclaren in the hands of Piastri was holding off Perez' attempts to take 6th place. 

Lap 2 Hamilton was holding onto Verstappen, keeping him within DRS range as Charles Leclerc began to drop back from the leading pair. Piastri continued a strong defense in front of Perez with Russell rapidly catching the pair, until Perez managed to pass the Mclaren at the end of lap 3 and set off to try catch Piastri's team mate Norris and potentially the Ferrari of Sainz when his Soft tyres had passed their prime. Russell & Gasly also quickly followed Perez past Piastri but when Russell did so he went off the track and  was handed a 5 second penalty for over taking off the track which was added to his time at the end of the race with the absence of pit stops in the Sprint. 

Lap 6 Alex Albon also overtook Piastri, who had massively over cooked his tyres defending to hard from Sainz, Perez and Russell meaning his run of Sprint race points scoring would come to an end. Also coming to an end was the Soft tyre advantage Carlos Sainz had over the Medium tyres of Lando Norris but the despite that and his best efforts it took Norris till lap 10 to finally pass Sainz, meaning he had only 9 laps to catch the sister Ferrari of Charles Leclerc who was 6.6 seconds down the road. 

Just 2 laps later Perez also passed Sainz for 5th place and it was becoming clear that the Soft tyre gamble had not paid off as Russell(on a mission to gain as much time as possible after his 5 second penalty) was coming fast to try and take his now 6th position. 
Magnussen made a brilliant move on Zhou further down the field for 16th, as Gasly keen to stay as close to Russel as possible without the need to overtake, had followed Russell on to the rear wing of Sainz. But it soon became clear that while the soft was not the best tyre for this race the Medium was also struggling and after doing his own fair share of tough racing Rusesll just didnt seem to have the grip to get past the ailing Ferrari despite getting the move done into turn 1 on lap 14 before Sainz managed to come back at him through turns 2 & 3 keeping his 6th place. This battle had also meant that Alex Albon was within reach of stealing the last of the 8 points paying places from Russell after his 5 second penalty was applied post the race and with 3 laps to go Albon with Russell stuck behind  slow Ferrari Albon set about trying to gain the 2.1 seconds  he needed to take 8th from R​ussell. 

2 Laps to go and Lance Stroll radios to the team he needs to box the car 'I have no brakes' and retired from the race as  Verstappen was leading Hamilton but over 7 seconds, the 2 were well clear of 3rd place man Charles Leclerc. Who despite having a 6.5 second advantage over Lando Norris on lap 10 was now just 2.4 seconds ahead of the Mclaren and that times was falling fast. Lap 18 that gap was just 1.084 seconds and we held our breath to see of Lando could get past the Ferrari to complete the top 3..... he was so close and as they crossed the line Leclerc was just 4 tenths of a second ahead of the Mclaren who had to settle for 4th today in Austin. 

Perez followed the pair home in 5th, Sainz did a mighty job to hold of George Russell for 6th, who after his penalty was applied finished in 8th behind Pierre Gasly who drove a great race to pick up 2 points and sadly Albon just missed out on that 5 second window of Russell and  the final points of the day.  
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It was a dominant performance from Max and his side of the Redbull garage , which he may well be grateful for today, where he starts 6th and will have a much tougher race ahead of him. Lewis Hamilton who we know has a real love for this track seemed genuinely happy with his days work and that of the team for the upgrades they have brought to this weekend and goes into today's race optimistic for more points in the Grand Prix.
It wasn't the most exciting Sprint 'Race' of the year but we saw real improvement from alot of teams or drivers, Mercedes, Mclaren and Ferrari are again closer to Redbull on track in Qualifying and the race and drivers like Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon showed their skills getting good results in cars that dont always meet their talents.

Onto the Grand Prix..........
Don't forget if you cant watch the race tomorrow keep a eye out for our Official F1 Journal Sunday Round Up to catch up on all the exciting events from tomorrows US Grand Prix 

Sprint 'Race' Result 

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

Joanna Blackmore 
​Writer @f1journal.co.uk