Official F1 Journal Sprint Saturday Round Up- Interlargos

Welcome to the Sprint Saturday Round Up were we recap all the events of the Sprint Saturday action....... lets go!

Sprint Shootout

SQ1- All on Medium Tyre

The feild was lead out by the 2 Redbull cars  with Verstappen setting the first time of 1.11.8, Perez couldn't match it but the Ferrari of Sainz could and beat both of them. Leclerc went 2nd on his first run, quickly being beaten by Hamilton whose tem mate Russell could only manage 4th. Piastri's first lap went 7th but was pushed down a spot as Alonso completed his first flying lap, Norris went 5th until the HAAS of Magnussen beat his time and pushed him down to 6th. After everyone had completed their first runs, Saniz was top, followed by Hamilton, Verstappen & Russell, with Stroll, Zhou, Albon, Tsunoda & Sargeant in the drop zone.  

As the 2nd runs began Norris put his Mclaren fractionally behind Sainz in 1st but Leclerc couldnt improve on his time before we saw a big incident between Ocon and Alonso at the exit of turn 3/entry to turn 4. Alonso who was on a slow lap was turning into Turn 4 as the flying Alpine of Ocon destabilized the rear of his car over the curbs on the exit of turn 3 and although catching the car could not avoid the turning Alonso and clipped his front left tyre hard. Alonso continued to the pits to hopefully be repaired for SQ2 but Ocon hit the wall hard and had major damage on his Alpine. You could argue Alonso could have given him more room but Ocon had very little control of the car just milliseconds before impact and so the incident was rendered a racing incident upon review after the session but unfortunately even with the delay to fix tyre wall that Ocon hit, the Aston Martin boys couldnt fix the car fast enough and so Alonso could take no part in SQ2 despite getting through on time to the next session. 

SQ1 Result

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

SQ2- All on Medium Tyre 

Again the Redbull lead the grid out followed by the 2 Mercedes cars, Perez was a similar amount off his team mate after their first flying laps, Hamilton couldn't beat either and slotted into 3rd till Norris beat him and pushed him down to 4th, till Piastri beat both their times taking 3rd place from his team mate. Magnussen set a time good enough for 6th and was faster than the Mercedes of Hamilton, Sainz and Leclerc found some pace on their first flying laps of SQ2 and went 2nd and 3rd behind Max till Perez stole back 3rd from Leclerc and Hulkenberg put in a cracking lap to go 4th whie George Russell couldn't manage better than 10th. With 4 minutes on the clock the bottom 5(Ricciardo, Gasly, Bottas, Tsunoda and Alonso who wouldnt take part in the session) hadn't set a time in the hopes to save their Medium tyres for the race on Sunday.  

2nd and final runs commenced and Verstappen came straight out and beat his fastest time with a 1.11.262, Bottas manged 7th pulling himself out of the drop zone breifly, Tsunoda did the same jumping to 6th. Magnussen went 7th soon after, Gasly could only manage 10th leaving him at risk of dropping out. Perez was the next man to cross the line and he went faster than team mate Verstappen by just 0.032 seconds. Hamilton and Russell who seemed to be struggling for pace could only set times good enough for 4th & 5th while Norris topped the times in his Mclaren pushing Max down to 3rd and Daniel Ricciardo pulled out a brilliant lap to end the session in 4th.  

SQ2 Result

1 NOR     2 PER
3 VER     4 RIC
5 LEC      6 HAM
7 SAI       8 RUS
9 PIA      10 TSU
11 MAG   12 HUL 
13 GAS   14 BOT
15 ALO

SQ3- All on Soft Tyre 

The final round of the Sprint Shootout was a slow start with all the cars opting to stay in the garage till there was just 5 minutes on the clock when Piastri left the pits followed by the rest of the cars. Sainz & Piastri were the only drivers with no new soft compound tyres so it would be a difficult lap for them against the newer rubber of the other 8 cars. Verstappen wasn't happy about waiting for other cars to file out onto the track and took to the grass at the pit exit to get going faster. 

Piastri set his lap 1st but was quickly beaten by his team mate Norris by just over half a second, Verstappen was next across the line but couldn't beat the rapid Mclaren and went 2nd, Leclerc managed 4th and was soon beaten by a very fast Yuki Tsunoda who stole 3rd, Ricciardo also in an Alpha Tauri could not beat his team mates time gong 5th fastest. Perez took the 3rd from Yuki, Sainz on his used Soft tyres could only manage 7th and dropped further when the 2 Mercedes set their laps, with Russell just pipping Hamilton to take 4th for the Sprint race later in the day.
Norris had done enough and despite asking himself 'Why am I so s!$@ at Qualifying' he was the king of the Shootout on that day much to his surprise. The whole top 10 was covered by just 0.567 seconds on what is the 2nd shortest lap time of the year. 

SQ3 Result 

1 NOR
2 VER +0.061
3 PER +0.134
4 RUS +0.235
5 HAM +0.318
6 TSU +0.397
7 LEC +0.455
8 RIC +0.500
9 SAI +0.504
​10 PIA +0.567
​

Sprint 'Race'

As the cars lined up on the grid everyone chose the soft tyres with the exception of the 2 HAAS cars and Logan Sargeant in the Williams. Lights out and despite a good 1st phase start from Lando Norris, Verstappen was along side in the 2nd phase and as they went into the 1st corner Verstappen took the lead with actually very little fight from Norris, Russell got Perez off the line with Hamilton following close behind, managing to overtake him into turn 1. Turn 6 and Russell who was great on the brakes also got past Pole man Norris dropping the lead Mclaren down to 3rd. Piastri went to deep on the breaks into turn 5 and went off the track but came back keeping Pierre Gasly behind him but let Ricciardo ahead in the process. Lap 2  Alonso was already on the back of Hulkenberg but couldn't get the HAAS into turn 1. 
Lap 3 and after a bad start Perez started to come back at the Mercedes of Hamilton, overtaking him down the start finish straight using the very effective DRS, Hamilton tried to come back around the outside of turn 1 but only managed to draw Leclerc closer to the battle for 4th. 

Lap 5 and Norris had caught Russell, the Mclaren was finding its pace finally, quickly overtaking the Mercedes and headed off in the hunt for 1st place Max Verstappen. A lap later Alonso still couldn't pass the HAAS of Hulkenberg into turn 1 but did get the move made 4 corners later, this was the beginning of a backwards trend for Hulk as Ocon & Stroll also made their way past him in the next lap. While Alonso set off to catch the sister HAAS of Magnussen. 
Lap 7 Piastri had caught but could not pass Ricciardo who was on brilliant form in the Alpha Tauri & Alex Albon reported oil coming out of the back of Bottas' Alfa Romeo before overtaking him.

On lap 8 a fantstic back and forth battle began between Perez and Russell began, both using the almost back to back DRS zones between turn 15 & turn 5, Perez got Russell into turn 1 but Russell came back and got the place back by the entry of turn 5 at the same time Albon passed a struggling Nico Hulkenberg( its such a shame the HAAS doesn't have the same pace in race as it has in qualifying). Lap 9 and Perez again over took Russell into turn 1 this time making the move stick and pulling away from the Mercedes as Alex Albon over took the 2nd HAAS in as many laps for 16th place. 
As lap 12 started Ricciardo has caught Sainz and was within DRS of the the Ferrari ahead pulling Piastri along with him. Ricciardo tried to go around the outside into turn 1 but Sainz came back around turn 2 and held off the Alpha Tauri man to keep his 8th place and the last point avaliable. 

Lap 13 started and both Aston Martin's were looking to over take the Alpine cars ahead of them, Alonso had caught Gasly and despite going into turn 5 side by side at the end of the DRS zone Gasly retained his position while Stroll had a good go at overtaking Ocon into the 1st turn but got the move finished into turn 5 were his team mate had failed. 
Ricciardo had another look around the outside of turn 1 on Sainz but couldn't make the move stick and let an aggressive Oscar PIastri get to close and lost his 9th place to the rookie Australian. Alonso & Gasly continued their battle out of the final corner with Alonso getting past the Alpine on the start finish straight but Gasly pulled ahead into turn 1 and kept 11th from the Aston Martin until Alonso got the move done into turn 5 and pulled away from the Frenchman finally and just 2 laps(lap 18) later Stroll did the same overtaking Gasly for 12th.

Lap 19 began and Norris had dropped back to 2.5 seconds behind the leader Max Verstappen, but was at no risk from 3rd place man Perez who was almost 8 seconds behind the Mclaren in 3rd. 
By lap 20 and inspite of his dying soft tyres Ricciardo has closed on Piastri, determined to retake 9th place from his fellow Aussie. It would be 2 more laps before he got the move done into turn 1 despite a hard defense from the rookie Mclaren driver who had never raced at Interlargos before. 
Hamilton was really starting to struggle on his Soft tyres  and was over taken by Charles Leclerc on lap 21 and then Yuki Tsunoda on lap 22 to add insult to injury for the Mercedes man.
The last lap started with Norris a long way behind Verstappen but Perez much further behind him with the gap to his team mate Verstappen now 13 seconds!
Alonso saw a chance to overtake Piastri on his struggling tyres but in a battle between the youngest and oldest drivers on the grid it would be the rookie that came out on top after a hard but fair defense into turn 1 that meant Alonso couldn't make a move down the straight between turns 4 & 5 with his team mate Lance Stroll very close behind him after the failed move. This writer would have loved to see that kind of defense from Piastri's team mate on lap 1 turn 1 with Verstappen but hey ho you can't have everything. 

The race ended with Verstappen dominantly taking the win and  all the cars finishing with no major crashes or flag interventions and on the whole it was a great Sprint race with lots of overtaking and battles that lasted not just the whole lap but 2 or 3 laps creating a great spectacle for all the fans. The sprint also ended the whole grid on same racing lap which is impressive even with the Sprint being so much shorter than the Grand Prix, as the Interlargos track has the 2nd shortest lap of the year!​

Sprint Result 

1 VER
2 NOR +4.287
3 PER +13.617
4 RUS +25.879
5 LEC +28.560
6 TSU +29.210
7 HAM +34.726
8 SAI +35.106
9 RIC +35.303
10 PIA +38.219
11 ALO +39.061
​12 STR +39.061
13 GAS +40.621
14 OCO +42.848
15 ALB +43.394
16 MAG +56.507
17 ZHO +58.723
18 HUL +60.330
19 BOT +60.749
​20 SAR +60.945

Hope you enjoyed guys onto the Grand Prix later today.

Joanna Blackmore 
​Writer @f1journal.co.uk