2023-06-03 15:16:10
Carlos Sainz He has achieved a superb classification for the Spanish Grand Prix, faithful to his appointment with this circuit, which he is brilliant at and where he always has great races. It is his best position of the season and the best ever in Spain, sensational. His classification today has been gigantic, the only one capable of giving some shade to that tremendous machine carried by Max Verstappen.
It’s half a second yeah but in that first row and at that exit, who knows. He does not have a car to be able to stand up to 66 laps, as far as is known, but the performance, with Leclerc out in Q1, inevitably places him as the best Spanish option in the race, especially if something happens to Max. And it is not the best layout for Ferrari, with so much fast corner “which is not our forte up to now”, says Carlos.
Max fulfilled all the forecasts that gave him as a great favorite for pole position, and victory in Spain. Despite all the evolutions of his rivals, who in many cases risk their mustache for trying to get closer to the championthe Dutchman has one more gear, with a car so noble that it doesn’t even move when you step on the pianos.
It is Max’s fourth pole of the season for two from Checo and one from Leclerc, who today did not even enter Q3 in one of the most complex classifications so far this season. Max actually had two sets of new softs and time did it with the first, that 1.12.2 that was already unattainable for the others, with what he had up to a game left over.
Fernando Alonso He might not get past ninth, with the car touched from Q1 in which a run off the track left the ground injured. But his strength is on Sundays and coming back, with the final addition of the sanction for Gasly that will leave him 8th, and makes it even more possible to see him on the podium tomorrow.
The major disappointment was Charles Leclerc, unable to get past Q1 or thread a good lap in the 18-minute session and following spending two sets of tires. Horrible staging and with the new car released on this circuit and more seeing, with its same engine, the veteran Hulkenberg in the mediocre Haas in Q3 and fighting for the first two rows.
And tremendous the KO of Checo Perez for the second consecutive race, this time in Q2 but outside of what would correspond to him per car, which is the first row. The Mexican is in a pothole or his car has begun to be strange to him.
En la Q2 The tremendous potential of Mercedes was seen, capable of going down to 1.12.9 and passing by, just two tenths behind Max and on the second lap of his soft tires, quite an advance. Russell was unable to take advantage of it since on his final lap he had an incredible brush with Hamilton himself, whom he should not have seen and he almost missed the wall on the main straight, where he reached 315 km / h. “Don’t let me know… I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened in this session, so much rebound, bad tires, I didn’t see him,” he said.
But the news was that of Checo, bad already from Q1 and 51 thousandths from making the cut to Q3 while his partner set the best time. There was a very exciting triple tie at 1.12.7 between Verstappen, Norris and Carlos, stellar from the beginning of the classification
In Q1 the red flag came out for a multiple track exit with everyone wearing soft shoes, the worst being Albon’s, who left the car in the gravel, another by Bottas, Tsunoda and Alonso himself, who left the car touched there for the rest, although at that moment he miraculously straightened it out and it was still capable of marking a time in case the deluge fell. He even had time to complain regarding the stopper that “an Alpine” made for Verstappen, that of Gasly… and he even asked for a three-place penalty, which in the end earned him to start 8th.
around Leclerc gave the bell that he was already aiming from the first moment, he had a hard time with the rear tires and with five minutes to go he was out, the same as Checo Pérez. He had to spend that second set then but neither, worse, 19th, for the first time for a Ferrari this season. “Incredible,” the Monegasque said angrily.
1685817074
#Spain #immense #Sainz #overshadows #Verstappen
