Max Verstappen took pole position in qualifying for the Qatar GP; here is our report!
Pain in Q1 in the Qatar GP
The first excluded from Friday's qualifying for the Qatar GP, for the purposes of our report, are: Sargeant, eliminated at the last second by teammate Albon. A particularly disappointing Stroll follows. The Canadian is in fact quite distant from his teammate: Alonso is simply third at the end of Q1... In eighteenth position we then find an Alpha Tauri, that of Lawson, Ricciardo's replacement. Nineteenth is another driver significantly displaced by his teammate: Kevin Magnussen; it must be said that Hulkenberg was able to make one more attempt than his Danish colleague. Finally, the last of the last: Zhou.
Q2: the qualifying session with the times deleted
At the end of Q2, Tsunoda is the first of those excluded, followed closely by a Sainz in difficulty: the Ferraris seem increasingly uncomfortable as the track becomes more rubbery. Contrary to “normal”. An anonymous Perez follows, who seems to save himself, but at the last moment his best time is canceled due to track limits and, consequently, he ends up in thirteenth position. Then there's Albon, who can't do any better and, finally, Hulkenberg, another rider to see his time canceled at the last second.
A Q3 of errors and Super Max
In Q3 the pole position of one stands out Max in very good shape, one step away from officially receiving his third world title. Second is... It would be Norris, but his time is canceled at the end of the session, so he drops to tenth place and George Russell rises to second. Third by a whisker is an extraordinary Piastri, the most promising rookie of this season... Then his time is also eliminated and therefore Russell and Hamilton will start second and third respectively, while Leclerc will start from fifth place. Norris and Piastri will therefore start tenth and sixth. Fourth was the legendary Fernando Alonso!
Overall, it was a Q3 full of mistakes, corrections and times deleted, sweating until the last second.
