Austria: pre-sprint race 2022

 

Yep, we’re cursed with sprint race bullshit this time. Thanks, F1. I think this will help out Mercedes (we’re unsure of their upgraded dry qualifying pace but they seemed competitive in the race last time out) and Alonso, who is not great at qualifying but who tends to excel at lap 1 passing. 

Bottas has new engine bits and will start back of the grid. 

Verstappen was fastest in first practice, a quarter of a second ahead of Leclerc with Russell a tenth and a half further back. Perez, Hamilton, and Magnussen followed, with Sainz, Alonso, Schumacher, and Tsunoda rounding out the top 10. 

In qualifying we had an odd thing in the first session as the McLaren was just slow. Ricciardo’s woes continued as he couldn’t even escape Q1, but Norris’ difficulties just staying on track in Q2 make it plain the car is both slow and tricky to drive. In the first session we also said goodbye to both Aston Martins, Latifi and, surprisingly, Zhou Guanyu.

In Q2, Norris was slowest with laps deleted aplenty. Bottas, both AlphaTauris, and Albon also exited at this stage. 

Q3 was weird. The Mercedes, especially with Hamilton at the wheel, had seemed a contender for the top two rows if not pole, yet (perhaps due to wind) first Hamilton binned it into the wall for a red flag, then a couple of minutes later Russell did the same. Also, while the stewards had been very swift on deleting laps for track limits they may have missed doing this for Perez, and he could end up with a penalty (for the sprint or actual race remains uncertain).

At the last, Verstappen (having gone yellow in the first two sessions) snatched pole to deny Ferrari a front row lockout, with Leclerc and Sainz right behind and Perez (it seems) next up. Russell is next assuming he doesn’t get a penalty, while Hamilton will be 10th. Between them are Ocon, Magnussen, Schumacher (great qualifying for Haas), and Alonso. 

Speaking of penalties, Bottas’ grid penalty apparently applies to the race proper, not the cash-grabbing bullshit of the sprint.

Then, because it’s the shitty format weekend (and we’ve got six buckets of this crap to put up with next season) we had the comedy of a practice session between pretend-qualifying and pretend-race.

Sainz was fastest, half a tenth ahead of Leclerc, with Verstappen a tenth further back. Alonso was next then Ocon (but both Alpine drivers were on medium and those ahead of them were on softs). Perez was half a second off the pace, a tenth or so ahead of Russell and Bottas. Hamilton and Norris round out the top 10.

 

Perez will start the sprint from 13th place, which means he should be able to easily recover to top 6 for the race grid. Bit rough that he gets a penalty rather than his time deleted at the time, as happened dozens of times. 

After a late of waiting no Ladbrokes market appeared so no tip for this sprint nonsense.

As usual, the pre-race ramble will be up tomorrow morning, all being well.

 

The pretend race starts at 3.30pm UK time.

 

Morris Dancer

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