F1 | Spanish GP: analysis of qualifying

After China and Azerbaijan, history repeats itself. Valtteri Bottas conquers pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix, the third in a row, placing the first step towards a possible triumph in Barcelona too. The Mercedes Finn interpreted the Spanish Saturday to perfection, especially in understanding the tyres, which, again in this case, proved to be one of the barriers to overcome in order to obtain a good time. For the fourth time this season we will also have a completely Mercedes front row, in an undisputed record-breaking position. There is a gap of over 6 tenths between the two drivers of the German manufacturer, but this can be partially explained by the difficulties encountered by Lewis Hamilton during his lap and by a battery that was not fully charged at the start of the attempt, as admitted by Toto Wolff himself, factors which undoubtedly penalized the Englishman in the hunt for pole.

Difficult day for Ferrari, not only due to the heavy gap suffered by Bottas, but also due to the positions conquered, finding themselves once again having to start with a small handicap: if Sebastian Vettel managed to patch things up and get third place on the grid, teammate Charles Leclerc fared worse, finishing fifth and behind Max Verstappen. What is most worrying, however, cannot help but be those almost nine tenths achieved by the Mercedes Finn, unexpected to such a large and overwhelming extent. Furthermore, you have to watch your back, because, at least on the flying lap, the Dutchman from Red Bull managed to maintain the gap from the Ferrari driver to within a tenth of a second, enough to place himself between the two Reds from Maranello. We'll see what tomorrow has in store for us, but expectations are far from rosy after the defeat in qualifying.

The two RB15s did not fare badly in comparison to the Ferrari and the gaps were particularly small. As for the internal duel, Pierre Gasly continues to improve race after race, but also on this occasion he suffered a gap of over three tenths from his teammate. Best of the rest are the two Haas, really competitive on the flying lap. The American team's car seems to adapt well to the Spanish track, exactly like a year ago, when the VF18 deservedly achieved a very prestigious result: be careful, however, about singing too soon, because this season we have already witnessed Grands Prix where the The Kannapolis team had been competitive in the qualifying tests and then suffered the blow and ended up off the radar during the race. Concluding the top ten were Danill Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo.

Q1: Hulkenberg and Giovinazzi among those eliminated

The first part of qualifying opened with a Mercedes that was immediately competitive, fast, agile and fearless. The first sign, of a path that was already quite clear, that it would be a Saturday in which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to beat the two "Silver Arrows". The fight moved to the rear, where the evolution of the track and the various events represented two fundamental factors for passing the round. The first qualifying session opened with the slight accident that occurred to Nico Hulkenberg, who ended up in the gravel and slightly touched the wall, ruining the front wing: the problem did not lie so much in the time lost, but in the fact that the damaged one was the only unit of the new upgrade package brought to Barcelona. As a result, Hulkenberg was forced to return to the track with an old specification front wing, a factor which undoubtedly compromised his performance, not to mention the damage to the floor resulting from the previous excursion on the gravel. The German made no excuses at the end of qualifying: “I'm quite disappointed in myself for this. I made a mistake in the first moto, I touched the wall slightly and we had to change the front wing and we also suffered damage to the floor. If you make mistakes, you pay for them. Today we could have entered Q2 at least. At the moment we lack a bit of rhythm and feeling,” were Hulkenberg's words in interviews. Disappointing day also for Antonio Giovinazzi, who had the potential to pass the trap and access the second part of qualifying: the Italian, however, was the protagonist of an error in turn 10 during his last attempt (blocking of the front right tire on the curb) which nullified the excellent work done in the first two sectors, in which he had set better split times than Kimi Raikkonen. Added to the list of excluded are the two Williams, now a sadly known fixture in this ranking, and Lance Stroll, eliminated for the fifth consecutive time in Q1 since he arrived at Racing Point. We'll see what the Canadian has in store for us on Sunday, given that, as demonstrated on previous occasions, the Canadian managed to make some good comebacks in the race, grabbing a few points.

Q2: The fight to access the final stage heats up

The first surprise of Q2 was Mercedes' decision not to take to the track with the medium tyre, but with the soft compound, despite the German manufacturer having the strength to attempt the fastest lap even with harder tyres. In these two days of testing, especially in FP3, it was clear that it was difficult to quickly get the tires up to temperature, so from a certain point of view the choice adopted by the Stuttgart team is also understandable. Once again, regardless of the compounds chosen, the W10 proved to be a tough single-seater, edging out more than 7 tenths of a second from its opponents in this qualifying phase. At Ferrari they also had to deal with a mistake made by Leclerc exiting turn 9, where, by ending up too wide on the curb, he damaged his car, especially in the rear area. This forced the Maranello technicians to send Leclerc onto the track for a second attempt: the Monegasque then managed to access Q3, but constantly complicating his life with mistakes in qualifying doesn't help the young talented Ferrarista.

In the fight to avoid elimination, 4 drivers finished their qualifying within 1 tenth, enough to be on that edge of being excluded or included. Daniil Kvyat, Daniel Ricciardo, Kevin Magnussen and Lando Norris are separated by very few hundredths and this has made the battle for Q3 truly uncertain. What is especially surprising is the performance of Renault, which had struggled to overcome the first cut in Q1, and then managed to qualify by the skin of its teeth in the last stage: the French team seems to be in a "prawn" phase, with performances that instead of improve go backwards. It will be interesting to see the challenge with the McLaren customer team which, on the contrary, seems to continue its growth path, despite not managing to reach Q3 here in Barcelona. A rather disappointing day, however, at Alfa Romeo and Racing Point: the Italian team with a Swiss heart was unable to go beyond Q2, with Kimi Raikkonen complaining during qualifying about a poor balance of his C38: "We struggled a bit with the set-up from the beginning of the weekend, but then in this morning's Free Practice it was quite good. The conditions changed in the afternoon and this made everything more difficult for us: on the one hand I'm not happy, but on the other I can't complain because we tried everything. I had the best lap of the weekend in qualifying, but it wasn't fast enough. It's not a big problem for us, it's small things that we need to work on and improve,” commented the Finn. It didn't go any better for Racing Point either, far from the top ten, but still worth keeping an eye on in view of the race, given the good comebacks that Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll have accustomed us to.

To conclude the list of eliminated, in addition to the aforementioned Raikkonen and Perez, also the two McLarens and Alexander Albon.

Q3: Mercedes draws a blank

The third and final phase of this qualifying was characterized by Mercedes' domination on the flying lap, capable not only of once again conquering the entire front row for the fourth time in the season, but also of inflicting very heavy gaps on its rivals. Valtteri Bottas brightened up the day, capable of putting together an exceptional lap and edging out more than six tenths of a second from his teammate, Lewis Hamilton. The gap can be partly explained, however, by the fact that the Englishman made several mistakes (also due to the disturbance of other single-seaters on the track) and that his car was not completely in order from the point of view of the battery charge, as also confirmed in post-qualifying by Toto Wolff. The W10 seemed almost on track compared to its rivals on the Spanish track, especially in the hands of the Finn, capable of interpreting the Pirelli tires best so far. The big difference lies in the third sector, where the Stuttgart team's car is the reference and manages to inflict heavy gaps even on Red Bull.

Valtteri Bottas commented on his performance: “I feel really good, every attempt in qualifying was better than the previous one. I chipped away a little here and a little there and managed to put it all together in Q3, doing a very fast lap. I think the package we brought to Barcelona works very well and the car was very strong, especially in the third sector", were the words of the poleman, certainly satisfied with what he showed. The race remains to be played, the most important day, in which the pace shown on Friday indicated the possibility of seeing him escape and skilfully play for the stage success. Tire management will be fundamental, but undoubtedly there is a desire to continue the positive streak of the last few races.

Despite some mistakes and the error in the pits in managing the battery charge, Lewis Hamilton still managed to bring home a vital second place, putting Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari and Max Verstappen's Red Bull behind him. A very important aspect for the Englishman, who will be able to immediately start chasing his teammate without the handicap of having to start from the second row: "I wasn't fast enough, I had to fight with the car all weekend, not being able to extract the potential” – said the five-time world champion -. “I will have to examine all the details, understand how I can improve my pace: Valtteri had a good session and an excellent job, so he deserved pole position. Our long run looked good, so I hope to be strong tomorrow.”

This result, however, leads us to talk about Ferrari and how, despite what was previously said and a perfect lap by Sebastian Vettel, the Ferrari was unable to take advantage of its rivals' mistakes and gain a very precious front row. This provides a bit of an image of this SF90 in Barcelona, ​​fast on the straight and in the pulling phases, but distant in the slow corners, especially those in the third sector. If, in fact, in the first two split times the Red car managed to defend itself well, in the final part of the track the Maranello team's car suffered a gap of over eight tenths in its personal best, a very heavy gap that not only puts it behind than Red Bull, but also on almost the same level as Haas. In particular, analyzing the lap of the 4-time world champion from Ferrari, one can clearly see heavy understeer and the tendency of the SF90 to not be able to bring the same speed as its rivals in the slower corners, a factor which is extremely penalizing in a sector mostly done by this type of challenge. Furthermore, as in China, Ferrari's difficulties in rapid reaction changes were highlighted, whereas the W10 manages to be very reactive and fast, guaranteeing the driver the possibility to dare and be sure that the car goes exactly as you want. you would wait. Vettel himself then confirmed these impressions: “The car is well balanced and I believe that the updates that have been brought have improved its driveability. But we are not yet where we would like because we go very fast on the straight but we lose too much in the slow corners. The result of all this is that we are not in front and therefore we must continue to work", were the words of the German after qualifying. A day made even more difficult for Ferrari by the fifth place of Charles Leclerc who, once again, will also be forced to chase the Red Bull from the start.

In fact, Max Verstappen was inserted between the two Reds from Maranello, once again a certainty with this RB15, ready to exploit any opportunity: "We improved a lot in qualifying and I am very happy to have finished close to Seb and split the Ferraris . The Mercedes, especially Bottas, were too fast, but we recovered and the balance of the car was better than before. I would have liked to finish further ahead, but our long run is good and we are more competitive in the race so I remain positive. Mercedes is fast, but we can fight for the podium,” commented the Dutchman during interviews. It will certainly not be easy to contain the two Ferraris, especially considering what was also shown on Friday, but Verstappen will undoubtedly try to stay as close as possible to grab the podium.

Concluding the top ten are the two Haas, Kvyat and Ricciardo. Haas seems to have finally found the right fit for a car that had disappointed in recent events, but be careful not to claim victory too soon, because as in Bahrain and China, the performance in the race will remain to be seen after the illusion of qualifying. Last year the VF18 performed very well on the Spanish track, managing to win the title of best of the rest; we'll see if he'll be able to repeat himself again this year, especially over long distances, but having brought both cars into Q3 is certainly an encouraging sign.

The strategies

For the race, Pirelli suggests a two-stop strategy, with the first two stints on soft tyre, then switching to medium for the final phase of the race. Given the difficulties of overtaking on this track, unless there is high degradation, it is likely to imagine that the teams will instead choose a single-stop strategy in order not to lose track position: in this case, according to the Italian manufacturer, the teams will be able to choose between option A, i.e. starting on the soft and then moving on to the hard, or option B, i.e. starting on the medium and then always finishing with the hard, a choice that will probably see the teams outside the top ten.