Australia: pre-qualifying 2022

And so we return to Oz for the first time in a few years. News broke between race weekends that another US venue, this time Las Vegas, will be crammed into an already overstuffed calendar next year, prompting fears of losing Spa and indifference to probably losing the French Grand Prix. Three races in a single country when we already have too many is ridiculous.

Anyway, Australia means early hours, with qualifying at 7am tomorrow and the race at 6am on Sunday. I’m looking forward to finding out if I manage to get up on time for those.

It also means the pre-qualifying tosh goes up early. Going into things my assumptions are:

Ferrari faster than Red Bull

McLaren boned

Alfa Romeo tasty

Mercedes further off the top two

Alpine intriguing to watch

 

In first practice Sainz was half a second ahead of his team mate, who was followed closely by Perez with Verstappen next up. Norris, Ocon, and Hamilton, were next, with Ricciardo, Alonso, and Bottas rounding out the top 10.

Second practice saw Leclerc a quarter of a second clear of Verstappen, with Sainz a tenth further back and some chap called Alonso in 4th. Perez was next, then Ocon, Bottas, Norris, Gasly, and Ricciardo.

Assuming these times are worth anything it means that Alpine are doing well and McLaren are doing rather better than I’d anticipated.

Ladbrokes have evens on Hamilton not finishing in the top 3 in the title race. He doesn’t have the car to do it. That may change. But it took a double retirement to get him onto the podium at the first race.

For this weekend, Sainz is 5 to be on pole. The Ferrari has been faster than the Red Bull in both sessions so far, and this is worth considering, although not having the final running in third practice is unhelpful. If you back this I’d advocate hedging on Betfair around the 2.5 mark.

 

So, no tip for qualifying. The only questions are: who will be on pole, and will I be up early enough to catch the start?

 

Morris Dancer

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