The Netherlands: pre-qualifying 2022

Well, the judgement has been made and Piastri, shocking not many, is joining Norris at McLaren next year. Not an edifying spectacle all round, really.

A gearbox failure early on curtailed Verstappen’s first practice running so we didn’t get anything like a representative time from him.

It was a Mercedes 1-2 at the top of FP1, with Russell a quarter of a second ahead of Hamilton. Sainz was next, then came Norris, followed by Ricciardo and Leclerc. Perez was only seventh fastest, a second off the ultimate pace, ahead of Alonso, Ocon, and Albon.

In second practice it was a Ferrari 1-2, with Leclerc four-thousandths of a second ahead of Sainz, and Hamilton and Norris both within a tenth of the Spaniard. Russell was a short way further back, followed by Stroll, Alonso, Verstappen, Ocon, and Ricciardo.

Verstappen’s second practice time was seven-tenths off the Ferraris. Which seems to be a gap too big to be true. However, Perez was half a second further back.

There was no 1-2 in third practice, though, with three drivers from three teams covered by two-tenths at the top of the timings. Leclerc led the way, half a tenth ahead of Russell and a tenth and a half ahead of Verstappen. Sainz, Hamilton, and Perez were all a little further back. Alonso, Vettel, Schumacher and Norris rounded out the top 10.

 

Short lap so traffic will be an issue in qualifying, and also affect the race. Overtaking will be relatively hard.

Annoyingly, the Ladbrokes fastest qualifier market isn’t each way. Otherwise Sainz at 10 and Perez at 34 might be worth a look. For the sake of completeness, Verstappen is 2, Leclerc, 2.5, and Russell/Hamilton 11 each.

No tip, qualifying is at 2pm UK time.

 

Morris Dancer

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

F1 2014 - Second and Third Tests

Image
Bit of a whopper of an article, but it didn’t make sense to write two for the Bahrain tests, as they were so close together. Many of the rule changes are helpfully outlined here: http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/22058/9077826/gearing-up-for-2014-the-rule-changes-uncovered-and-explained-part-one This is one more reason why reliability is to critical. Losing a whole power unit (exceeding the 5 per season limit) means starting the next race from the pit lane. Losing a component, such as the turbo, means a 10 place grid penalty. On day one of the first test in Bahrain it appeared the Renault/Red Bull woe might continue. However, both Red Bull and Toro Rosso got in good running on the second day. Any remaining issues seem more to do with the car rather than the power unit. It’s been suggested the Renault requires significantly more cooling than rival engines, but apparently there are upsides. If the horsepower rumours were true (Mercedes being mighty and Ferrari better
Read more

Japan: early discussion

Image
As we enter the latter stages of the season we have multiple pairs of back-to-back races, hence this discussion starting a day after the Korean Grand Prix (which may be the last, incidentally. The circuit’s too isolated, surrounding developments haven’t been built and the organisers are annoyed by the high cost of staging the race which is the only use of the circuit all year). The Suzuka circuit is a proper one, with lots of elevation changes, a very fast flowing section (similar to Silverstone) and some very high speed corners. Sadly, I expect this will mean it’ll suit Red Bull. However, given their resurgence, it’s worth mentioning that last year Sauber had a strong result at Suzuka, when Kobayashi got third. Perhaps Hulkenberg will be able to get good points again (thanks to him Sauber are now tied on points but ahead of Toro Rosso in the Constructors’) and Gutierrez could nab his first point or two. Lotus benefited from some fortune with the safety car timing in Kore
Read more

America: pre-race

Image
Q1 saw the pointless teams ditched as usual, but there was a stark divergence between the Williams’ drivers. Bottas was 1st (in Q1 only), and Maldonado 18th. Turns out money can only buy seats, not speed. Surprising to see such a difference between the two drivers, though. Sutil went out in 17th, and may have suffered some sort of technical problem as he peeled off after his final lap. During Q2 it was confirmed Sutil had a problem, namely a slow puncture. Q2 saw the surprise departure of Rosberg. The Mercedes seemed to be the best of the rest, so that’s quite a shock. Not only that, he’s 14th, behind Ricciardo, Di Resta and Button (although Button suffers a 3 place grid penalty for ignoring red flags during practice). Massa is behind Rosberg, followed by Vergne. Impressively, Sauber got both of their cars into the top 10. Q3 was surprisingly close, but Vettel narrowly got pole ahead of Webber. Grosjean continues his strong form with 3rd, followed by Hulkenberg, who is
Read more