Max Verstappen Secures Pole Position in Sao Paulo GP Qualifying: Aston Martin’s Performance in Question

2023-11-03 19:27:52

In the Sao Paulo GP qualifying held before the rain, Max Verstappen won the final pole position. Although the Aston Martin team grabbed the second row, it remains to be seen whether it can get rid of the rather sluggish performance in the previous rounds.

Free practice: Ferrari wins fastest lap, Red Bull adopts reserve tactics

With this week being the last sprint competition week of the season, the only free practice left to develop final strategies is a 60-minute session held at noon on Friday at track time, making the work of each team even tighter.

Although the fastest lap in the free practice held in sunny and hot conditions was set by the Ferrari team, and last year’s championship winner Russell ranked third, the Red Bull team only used soft tires and medium tires in order to maximize the efficiency of use. A set of hard tires allowed Verstappen and Perez to rank at the bottom of the class.

Qualifying: Verstappen emerges winner in battle once morest time

The qualifying session, which was delayed until 15:15 track time on Friday due to track cleaning operations, will determine the starting order for Sunday’s final. The 18-minute Q1 and the 15-minute Q2 will eliminate the last five drivers in order, and 12 The 15-minute Q3 determines the pole position driver and the top ten starting order.

The Interlagos circuit started in a cloudy and hot environment with a temperature of 31 degrees Celsius and a track temperature of 44 degrees Celsius. The wind was strong and the probability of rainfall was 60%. This not only caused half of the teams to be stuck early when the track opened. position, and entered a rather rushed state, which also left the driver without much buffer time, and had to run a lap result that was significantly better than that of free practice from the beginning.

After the first round of time testing, the qualifying standard for Q1 was similar to last year’s Q2 when it was not affected by rain. At the same time, the engineers of each team continued to exchange weather information with the drivers. In addition, in the last 3 minutes, the total gap between all drivers was only One second later, the overall ranking of the field also continued to change.

Although Stroll seemed to have rained on the track at the end of his report, Russell, who set the fastest lap in Q1, had pushed the time to 1 minute 10 seconds 340 when all drivers had a complete last lap opportunity; Yuki Tsunoda Ranked first in Q1 with a difference of 0.044 seconds, Ricciardo, Bottas, Sargeant and Zhou Guanyu were also eliminated in the continuous competition.

As the weather continued to be unstable, the temperature and road surface temperature gradually dropped on the track. After the start of Q2, the situation was similar to that of Q1. Under the influence of the first wave of traffic, only Verstappen and McLaren teams on the field created better results than Q1. Russell’s fastest lap in Q1, with Verstappen temporarily taking the lead at 1:10.162.

However, the results of the second round of testing conducted by Russell and others when there was a gap in the track improved significantly, so that the qualifying standard for Q2 was pushed to 1 minute 10 seconds 375 with 4 minutes left, and the top ten The difference was only 0.226 seconds.

Although Norris took the top spot in Q2 in the second half with 1:10.021, other drivers were caught in the problem of changes in the track environment during the final round of testing and were unable to improve their results. Stroll, who was originally relatively dangerous, had a narrow victory. The last ticket to advance eliminated Hulkenberg, Ocon, Gasly, last year’s pole winner Magnussen and Albon, who had the worst performance.

With dark clouds over the track and heavy rain causing spectators in the bleachers to prepare their rain gear, and with most drivers only having 6 to 7 minutes to conduct a valid time test, the ten drivers who advanced to Q3 were not allowed to enter from the start. Although most drivers successfully completed the test with a time of 1 minute and 11 seconds, and Verstappen became the only driver to enter 1 minute and 10 seconds, Piastri ran off the track at Turn 12, which affected his and Perez’s results. Considerable impact.

Then the strong convective cloud system completely entered the track and brought a heavy thunderstorm. The qualifying session was announced to be over, and the post-race interview was rescheduled to the FIA ​​warehouse for some reasons; Verstappen became the pole driver of this race, and Leclerc became the other leader. Ranking the sports car drivers, the third to tenth places are Stroll, Alonso, Hamilton, Russell, Norris, Sainz, Perez and Piastri.

After qualifying, each team will face the last sprint day of the season. The start time of sprint qualifying is 22:00 on November 4th, Taiwan time, and the 24-lap sprint race is at 02:30 on November 5th.

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