Belgian GP Qualifying: Verstappen rain master, Leclerc inherits pole
F1 NewsSaturday, 27 July 2024 at 17:07
Max Verstappen was unchallenged as he went fastest in a wet qualifying for the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix, but it is Charles Leclerc who will start the race from pole after the Dutchman serves his ten-place grid penalty.
Verstappen executed Red Bull's plan to perfection, controlling the damage of the grid penalty as best as possible, while Sergio Perez rose to the occasion and was third fastest and will line up on the front row beside Leclerc.
This means Perez can take the fight to Leclerc and make sure he doesn't race into the distance as Verstappen makes his way through the field from 11th.
Perez's performance came at the perfect moment as speculation surround his future at Red Bull with a decision set to be announced after the race in Spa. The Mexican will now be focusing on finishing the job on Sunday.
Ferrari took the right decision to pit Leclerc for a new set of tyres in the last minute which meant he could improve in the dying moments of qualifying to capitalize on Verstappen's penalty, a decent result given the Monegasque's struggles earlier in the weekend.
Lewis Hamilton was the better Mercedes driver this time around, fourth fastest while his teammate was down in seventh.
Splitting the Mercedes drivers were the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, fifth and sixth respectively, after what can be considered a disappointing qualifying for the Papaya cars.
On a day when Verstappen was getting a grid penalty, McLaren would have hoped to inherit pole from the triple Formula 1 Champion, but now will have their work cut out come Sunday.
Behind Russell, Carlos Sainz was eighth fastest, while Fernando Alonso did a solid job to drag his Aston Martin into ninth.
Esteban Ocon, who received Alpine's upgrade package this weekend delivered an excellent tenth place for the French team.
The Belgian GP will be a dry race, so it would be interesting to see how the teams' setup choices affect their pace as they move from wet to dry running.
Verstappen ended up running a higher downforce setup, his lap times in the second sector proof of that, and will be counting on his RB20's trick DRS and new Honda engine to make up for the resulting drag on the straights.
Verstappen: Tomorrow is quite a different day
Verstappen commented after qualifying: "It was a nice qualifying. Luckily the weather was okay. It was just raining a little bit and at least we could do a decent qualifying
"Everything worked well. Every tyre set that we were on we could just do good lap times. I was thinking about Q3, not knowing if it was going to dry out, so I was trying to keep two new sets for Q3, and luckily we escaped Q1 and Q2.
"Very happy. The car was working quite well in the wet. I could just do my laps and try to do clean lap times in the wet, which is always quite tricky," he added.
However, the Red Bull ace admitted Sunday will be a different challenge, he said: "But tomorrow, of course I know that it’s quite a different day. It’s going to be warmer, normally no rain, so it’s all about tyre degradation. We just need to make sure we’re good on that.
"I know that I have to start 10 places back so this was the best I could do today, and I go from there. I don’t know how quick we’re going to be. I hope that we can be in the mix to try to move forward.
"The race can be lost in Turn 1, so just need to see what happens at the start, naturally, and just go from there. It’s a very long race, it’s very hard on tyres and we just need to try to manage that as good as we can, and hopefully then we can be competitive tomorrow.
"We are not making it easy on ourselves and especially of course in the battle that we’re in," Verstappen pointed out. "I know that today was a great day, but it’s in the wet, we need to be quick in the dry tomorrow.
"It’s going to be a tough battle. We’ll try to do the best we can. Hopefully we can battle the Ferrari and Mercedes ahead, and if we have a bit of luck, maybe we can challenge the McLaren," he concluded.
Leclerc: I'll try to keep that first place
"It's good," Leclerc added. "I definitely did not expect that this weekend. Obviously with the tricky conditions we could do something above our expectations.
"So it's a good day for the team so now we need to focus on tomorrow and see what will happen when the rain is gone.
"Without this rain, probably P5 was the position we were fighting for with the Mercedes especially. But with the rain it helped us a little bit, but I'm not going to complain.
"I'm really happy, I'm really happy with the lap in Q3, and it's good to be back on the front part of the grid. Now we've got to finalise that tomorrow.
"It's not the easiest first place to keep on the first lap here, but honestly I will see. Every start is different and then once I will be in the car tomorrow through Eau Rouge I will see what the best thing is that I can do.
"Obviously I'll try to keep that first place," the Ferrari driver concluded.
Perez: It was very tricky
After his strong performance, Perez revealed it was not a straightforward qualifying, he commented: "It was very tricky, at times. As always in these conditions, it’s so easy for it to go wrong, as it’s been going in the last few qualifyings in these conditions. It was good to finally put it together.
"Unfortunately we didn’t have any new tyres for Q3. We were a bit out of sync in Q2, so we were also quite lucky to make it P10," he lamented.
However Perez is encouraged from his starting spot, he said: "I think P2 is probably the best position you can wish for in Spa. It was the same with Charles last year, so I’m going to be trying tomorrow to be the same. It’s a long race ahead of us. It looks like it’s going to be dry, so we’ll see.
"Like I’ve always said, every weekend is a new opportunity to do better, every day. Tomorrow is a new opportunity for us to do even better than today and go for that win.
"We’ll see. It’s a very long race ahead of us. I think degradation will be quite tricky. Graining with this new tarmac. I think there a lot of unknowns still. But I’ve got a good feeling for tomorrow, so we’ll see," the Mexican concluded.
Q1: Expected rain never came
After a soaked final practice which ran less than half its allocated 60 minutes, the rain eased off a bit ahead of qualifying which started under an 80% risk of rain.
Track temperature was 22 degrees Celsius with ambient temperature at 18 degrees.
As such the drivers rushed out into the pitlane to make sure they head out on track as soon as possible just in case the conditions worsened, Norris leading the pack.
The qualifying started with the race control prohibiting the use of DRS due to the conditions as McLaren informed Norris that rain will arrive in eight minutes, meaning get in a decent banker lap ASAP.
Just as Norris started his first timed lap, he was informed that rain would come earlier, in five minutes earlier than previously forecasted.
Hamilton in the Mercedes - who have removed their latest package due to bouncing - reported: "No grip."
The drivers starting putting in the laps before the rain returned and several of them took turns at the top spot as the times starting to drop.
With less the eight minutes, McLaren told Norris it is "now or never" for a new set of Intermediates, the Briton complies and boxes. He was 11th at that moment.
With six minutes remaining, Verstappen and Perez were on top of the times at that moment, but soon Piastri went fastest, but not for long as the Red Bull Champion re-claimed the top spot by over six tenths as Hamilton popped up in third.
Norris was not the only driver to pit for new Inters, several others followed suit as they attempted to make the cut into Q2. As a matter of fact all driver took new tyre sets except Verstappen.
Replay showed that Verstappen was impeded by Zhou Guanyu in the Sauber, an incident which will be investigated after the session.
With rain never coming times kept improving, but Verstappen could not improve - due to impeding - and was third fastest in Q2 as Piastri went fastest, 0.076s faster than Gasly in second.
Losing out on Q2 were: Nico Hulkenberg in 16th, Kevin Magnussen in 17th, Yuki Tsunoda in 18th, Logan Sargeant in 19th, with Zhou in 20th.
Q2: Perez makes Q3 by the skin of his teeth
Albon led the way out on track as Q2 was given the green light, as rain was yet to hit and it seemed some parts of the track started to dry out.
Verstappen reported it was "raining a little bit" but his engineer responded that it was a "fine drizzle". Russell reported the rear of his car is sliding all over the place. The Briton soon pits for a new set of Inters.
The drivers started the same game as in Q1, putting in lap after lap, as conditions kept improving and with half of Q2 elapsed the order was: Verstappen - Norris - Alex Albon - Piastri - Ocon - Perez - Daniel Ricciardo - Alonso - Hamilton - Sainz.
Then Perez soon reported it was raining harder as several drivers pitted for fresh tyres for another attempt to make it into Q3.
With three minutes remaining had a moment at Turn 14, dipping one wheel in the gravel, but improves regardless. Verstappen had a similar moment earlier.
At the end of Q2, Verstappen led the way into Q3 with a lap time of 1:53.837, 0.200 faster than Hamilton in second with Russell third fastest.
Perez made it into Q3 by the skin of teeth, tenth fastest and dropping Albon out by 0.003s, the Williams driver starting the race from 11th.
A frustrated Pierre Gasly was out as well, 12th fastest for the Alpine, 0.047s ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in 13th in the VCARB.
Valtteri Bottas was 14th ahead of Lance Stroll in 15th.
Despite Perez reporting harder rain, the did not seem to be the case as many drivers managed to improve after that.
Q3: The fight for second best behind Verstappen
Verstappen entered Q3 with an advantage being the only driver to have two sets of fresh Intermediate tyres. Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren drivers have one fresh set remaining. Perez, Alonso and Ocon do not have any new sets left.
Hamilton and Russell started the first timed laps, the former going fastest the latter going second fastest, but soon Piastri splits the Mercedes, as Ocon goes fourth from his first attempt, but soon drops to fifth as Norris goes fourth.
Sainz went fifth fastest as Leclerc went sixth while Perez went first fastest only for Verstappen to take that position by over six tenths from his teammate. Provisional pole.
With less than five minutes remaining, rain was reportedly increasing its intensity, with some drivers pitting others remaining on track and running.
Hamilton stayed out and improved his time but not enough to challenge Perez, remained in third with Norris improving to fourth with Piastri in fifth.
Verstappen and Perez went out on track again with less than three minutes, as all ten cars were out on track for the final push.
In the end, Verstappen was unchallenged with a 1:53.159, six tenths faster than Leclerc in second, as Perez was third fastest, 0.010s behind the Ferrari.
Hamilton had the better of Russell this weekend, and was fourth fastest, 0.676s off the pace and 0.146s ahead of Norris in fifth.
It was not a strong qualifying for McLaren as Piastri was sixth fastest, 0.868s off the pace, while Russell was seventh fastest, 0.157s faster than Sainz in eighth.
Alonso was ninth fastest in the Aston Martin with Ocon a strong tenth.
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