F1 | US GP: analysis of qualifying

Thanks to the pole position achieved in the Texan heat of Austin, for the ninth time this season Max Verstappen will start from the first spot on the starting grid, making the most of the last attempt available of the day to place his RB16B at the top of the time ranking. The Dutchman actually managed to stop the clock at 1:32.910, trailing the competition by more than two tenths, a result that almost seemed like a mirage bearing in mind how the weekend had started, with a subdued Red Bull struggling with some difficulties in the search for balance. Doubts which were then dispelled thanks to skilful fine-tuning work by the engineers of the Milton Keynes team, capable of finding the compass again and solving those rear axle management problems which had caused some headaches on Friday morning by bringing their riders back in a position to compete for the most coveted positions in qualifying.

“I'm surprised after today's qualifying, but I'm very happy to be on pole. It wasn't an easy weekend for me, I was trying to find the right balance, so putting that lap together in Q3 was very satisfying. I'm really satisfied with the performance of the whole team today and I'm happy that we finally managed to put everything together for the last lap” – explained Verstappen during the interviews -. “We improved the balance and today I felt much more comfortable in the car than yesterday. The pace in qualifying is also a good sign ahead of tomorrow's race, but I still expect it to be tough out there, it will be very hot and it will be difficult to manage the tyres, which will make the racing more interesting. We just have to focus on ourselves tomorrow, hope for a clean start and then be as fast as possible,” added the Hasselt rider. A Red Bull in great shape, capable of making the difference not only in the fast corners of the first sector, but also in the slower areas of the track thanks to careful tire management, one of the key topics of the weekend. On a track that since Friday morning seemed to have put the rear axle in crisis, forcing the riders to fight against overheating of the rear axle, the set-up changes made by the technicians, as well as good tire management in the first half-time , allowed Verstappen to find a better feeling with the car and dare in those points where, on the contrary, Mercedes seemed to be in more difficulty, achieving a pole that smacks of a great opportunity.

Alongside the Red Bull standard bearer there will be Lewis Hamilton, who certainly cannot be satisfied with what, after the first free practice session, seemed to be a downhill weekend for Mercedes. But if the Milton Keynes team was able to take a step forward by making the right changes to extract the most from the car on the flying lap, the same cannot be said for the Brackley counterpart, which in the end was forced to retrace her steps: “After FP1, our hopes were quite high, but in FP2 we started to struggle. For qualifying we returned to the original set-up with which we started the first free practice session, I think Red Bull managed to manage this weekend better in this respect. We are there at the front, but not like in the previous races, it wasn't easy", commented the technical director James Allison, trying to explain why the W12 did not demonstrate the performance levels that had characterized it in the last few events, albeit on circuits that are most favorable to you in terms of conditions.

This was also echoed by Hamilton himself, who did not hide the difficulties encountered during the weekend, underlining however that second place was the maximum result achievable: “Today I gave everything. In qualifying it wasn't easy, the Red Bulls were incredibly fast, while after the first free practice we took a step back and lost our way, our rivals did better than us. I think that in FP1 we had the potential to stay with them or even be ahead of them, but then they made steps forward. I'm still happy with my last lap in Q3, there's definitely always something you can improve on, but I think it was the best,” added the seven-time world champion. A Mercedes which, therefore, after a happy start was unable to confirm itself, going into crisis in the management of the rear tyres, and on several occasions both during the second free practice sessions and in the Saturday morning session the Englishman was seen having to fight against skidding of the rear axle, losing that grip and momentum necessary to stay ahead of the two rival single-seaters. Given the prospects, the second place finish is still something to be seen positively, because already in the past the start from the inner trajectory has shown that it can offer overtaking opportunities in the first metres, which in this case would represent the Englishman's best chance of turning a Saturday in chiaroscuro on a Sunday to remember.

The goodness of the RB16B in Texan style was also confirmed by the excellent third place of Sergio Perez, who was already at ease with the single-seater since Friday afternoon both in the time attack and in the long-distance pace. Positive sensations also confirmed in qualifying, where he managed to keep the gap from his teammate under two and a half tenths, testimony to the good preparation work carried out by the Mexican and the team. In a weekend where the most critical elements are precisely those in which the driver from Guadalajara generally stands out, Sergio is back among the protagonists, conquering a precious third position which will give Red Bull the opportunity to think ahead of the race knowing that it can playing with two arrows in their bow, in an attempt to put their rivals in check and confirm themselves on Sunday too. A second row which, in reality, could have also become a second position if the standard bearer of the Milton Keynes team had not lost pace in the last sector, where he had lost over a tenth and a half compared to the first run of Q3: "We were very close. I think we did a great job as a team. Unfortunately, my final attempt wasn't so good the whole round. I improved a little in the first sector, but I wasn't able to maintain it. I think the rain hit me a bit in the final sector. There were patches, I lost a bit of grip in two corners, I could see my delta very far away", declared the number 11 during the interviews, underlining how the rain droplets that fell in the final moments of qualifying could have played a role , albeit minimal, on the final time. Observing the telemetry results, it emerges that the Mexican had lost something when going through turn nineteen, not being able to fully return to the accelerator as he had done previously, then finding a lower speed in the exit phase.

A fight, the one between Ferrari and McLaren, which with just a few appointments at the end of the championship becomes more and more exciting. If on Friday the Woking team seemed to have something more than their Maranello counterpart, on Saturday the situation was reversed, especially when the Red team increased in terms of mapping, solving that derating phenomenon in some points of the track that had been seen during the first free practices. An SF21 that defended itself well on the sprints, as well as in the sections where aerodynamic load matters most. An obvious example is the change of direction of the eight-nine, where Charles Leclerc, the true protagonist of the Ferrari day, was able to make the difference from the start to the start, detaching the MCL35M as yesterday, despite an extremely fast in the fastest sections, such as turn nineteen. “It wasn't an easy Saturday for me, but ultimately I can say I'm very satisfied with how qualifying went and that my day ended on a high note. It started with some difficult free practice, in which I had a good first attempt but then struggled a lot in the second because I didn't feel the rear well and consequently I wasn't comfortable in the car. We made some changes and went into Q1 doing several laps which allowed me to regain confidence, so from Q2 onwards I was able to push hard again. Having set my best lap at this stage on the Medium compound should be an advantage for tomorrow's race. We will also gain a position on the grid and so Carlos and I will start fourth and fifth, even if for me this means having to start from the dirty side of the track. I will give my all to bring the team a good result in tomorrow's race", explained Leclerc at the end of qualifying, who was able to qualify on the medium unlike his teammate, Carlos Sainz, who initially tried the soft for ensure passage to the round in case some other driver decided to try the solution of the softer compound. To try to avoid having to start on the soft, the Spaniard had tried to set a time on the medium, but without improving.

A McLaren that perhaps disappointed a little, not so much in terms of positions, but from a chronometric point of view, because the gap from Leclerc is still significant: "We expected to be ahead of the Ferraris, they made a good pace today compared to where they were yesterday. So I think we didn't delude ourselves yesterday, but they made a good leap from yesterday to today. We were still competitive, we weren't bad yet, but they were just faster,” explained Norris, who was beaten in qualifying by his teammate, Daniel Ricciardo. However, the English team hopes to have something more on its side in view of the race, especially in tire management, an element that could prove fundamental not only in the fight with Sainz, but also in that with Leclerc, trying to understand what the role of the Spanish in this fight.

Ninth place, which will become eighth on the grid thanks to Bottas' penalty, for Pierre Gasly, struggling with a difficult weekend, especially due to the difficulties in finding balance encountered on Friday. Problems which concerned in particular the management of the rear axle which, as with other teams, caused like a vicious circle a loss of grip in the most delicate phases of the lap, so much so that AlphaTauri was forced to sacrifice part of the session to make changes which were initially aerodynamic and then mechanics that would allow it to find that little something extra to get closer to Ferrari and McLaren. The work carried out during the night, intervening for example on the load level of the rear wing, has partly borne fruit by putting the two drivers of the Faenza team in a position to fight for the top ten, also taking advantage of the penalties received by the opponents for the replacement of some components of the Power Unit. There are five tenths of a gap from the best Ferrari, accumulated between the second and third intermediate times, more particularly in sections such as turn nine, in the phase of entering and going through turn fifteen and at the last corner, where his clean approach was not as effective as that of its rivals. “We can be satisfied with how today went, we have the four top teams ahead of us, so we will start from a good position. Friday was tougher than we expected, but we managed to improve and, with Valtteri's penalty, we will start from P8. It's good that we managed to qualify on the Medium tyres, so as to have the best option for tomorrow: I think we're in for a tough race for the tyres. We have many strategic options: tonight we need to study the best one to use in the race,” commented the Frenchman at the end of qualifying, where he managed to qualify in Q2 on the medium tyre, an important element on a strategic level in view of the race. Yuki Tsunoda was unable to do the same and, as in Turkey, he decided to try to pass the cut with the softest compound available, although this will potentially be a price to pay in the first half of the race when the high fuel load on board and degradation will make a difference. However, this is the second consecutive top ten for the Japanese and this will represent an important element for the Italian team to be able to manage the competition behind them and create some opportunities at a tactical level. Valtteri Bottas will be inserted between the two AT02s, who was not the author of a particularly convincing performance, thanks to some micro-locking and understeer in his last attempt, replicating the difficulties he had already encountered during the second free practice session ; the five-place penalty for replacing yet another engine will force him into a further uphill race.

One of the most fearsome rivals in this sense for the AlphaTauri will be Esteban Ocon who, instead of trying at all costs to get through to Q2 at the cost of fitting the softest compound, had played cunning by fitting the tires in both attempts yellow band. In the worst case scenario, in fact, the Frenchman would have started from the sixth row anyway, given that three of the riders present in the second heat would still have been forced to start from the back, limiting the damage even in the event of a possible elimination. However, Alpine had tried everything to allow the Frenchman to play his chances of getting into Q3, also taking full advantage of the presence of his teammate to provide him with the slipstream on the opposite and longer straight of the track, leading to an increase in terms of speed maximum of approximately 15km/h. A tactic which, however, did not allow Ocon to compensate for the time lost in the corners, confirming the lack of pace on the flying lap shown since the beginning of the weekend, which then pushed Alpine to the decision to replace the Power Unit on Fernando Alonso's car to allow him to have a fresh unit available for the last part of the season: “The negative aspect for us is that this weekend we didn't have enough pace. At every other track we have been competitive, so we need to understand why. This is also why we decided to replace the engine. Reliability is still good, there are no problems from that point of view, we did it to obtain performance advantages. Let's see if we can gain some points by starting from the back", explained Alonso at the end of qualifying, underlining the French manufacturer's choice to think more prospectively about the remaining races to use some more aggressive mapping without having to serve a penalty again.

Antonio Giovinazzi will start from the twelfth spot on the starting grid, whose fate in qualifying was somehow intertwined with that of the one who will start behind him, Lance Stroll. At the end of the first heat, in fact, a spin by the Italian driver coming out of turn one led to the display of the double yellow flag, thus depriving the Canadian of Aston Martin of the opportunity to improve his time and avoid a bitter elimination , especially because the representative of the English team seemed to have the pace to be able to aim for something more. An unfortunate episode for Stroll, although thirteenth position will still give him the opportunity to think he can fight for a place in the points: “It was frustrating to be eliminated from qualifying early because I think we had the pace to achieve more. On my last lap in Q1, [Antonio] Giovinazzi spun in front of me and the double yellow flags at turn two ruined my lap. There are a number of drivers taking grid penalties, so it remains to be seen where I will line up for the race. Wherever we leave, we will fight hard to come away with something tomorrow,” number eighteen commented in interviews. Joining him on the seventh row will be Nicholas Latifi, who did not hide his disappointment for what could have been a position in Q2 if it had not been for a few too many mistakes at the beginning of the second sector of the decisive run, where several corrections in following the sliding of the rear end, which according to the Canadian was due to a sudden change in the balance of the car in the fastest corners, had limited his chances of getting through, so much so that in that same half-time he had been two tenths slower than the previous attempt. Hundreds of cents which he paid dearly in the end, because even by replicating the same time obtained in the first attempt on that same stretch of the track, Latifi would have managed to overtake the riders ahead of him in the standings, snatching the access ticket to the second from the hands of his rivals heat. Difficult day also for Kimi Raikkonen, only eighteenth following a Q1 which gave him very little satisfaction due to a precarious car balance, leading him on several occasions to have to save the car from ending up in a spin and to obtain a time sufficient to keep behind him only the two Haas of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin. Concluding the grid will be Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and George Russell, forced to start from the last positions following the replacement of the Power Unit but with an order established based on the position achieved during qualifying.

The fight for pole position

Once again, Max Verstappen will line up in front of everyone on the grid, capable of conquering a beautiful and precious pole which, despite what the standings say, had never really been taken for granted. A first position is the result of skilful set-up work from Friday to Saturday which made it possible to correct the difficulties in terms of balance found in the first free practices, providing both drivers with a car capable of fighting to monopolize the front row . A session in which the difference was made by the ability of the RB16B not only to prove particularly effective in the fast corners of the first sector, but also to manage the overheating of the tires and the reduction of power in the slower sections, thus finding the traction necessary to put the Mercedes in check, although it was fearsome in other parts of the track.

An aspect visible already starting from turn one, where just at the moment in which it was necessary to return to the accelerator near the internal curb once the apex had passed, the Englishman had, despite himself, been the victim of a loss of the rear, thus ending up in oversteer exactly like his best lap on Friday. An important element, because the impossibility of obtaining the best from the traction phase would have been decisive for the following downhill section to be covered in full, where in fact Verstappen had managed to gain over a tenth and a half of advantage, bringing that gap into that which would have been the fastest area of ​​the route, i.e. that of the "S". A section in which, to tell the truth, Red Bull had also proved to be competitive during free practice and in which it had also managed to confirm itself in qualifying, thus increasing by a few more hundredths of a second that little treasure which could have proved very useful for contain the rival in the central part of the track. A few meters in which, however, some of the characteristics that have repeatedly illustrated the dynamics of this track were visible, with the Dutchman lifting his foot off the accelerator more so as not to overly burden the front, while Hamilton merely limited himself to partialling.

If on Friday one of the real strengths of the Mercedes was the interpretation of turns six-seven, exploiting the reactivity of the front of the W12 to push the car in the change of direction and bring greater speed along the way, the qualifying revealed a different story, not so much because the Anglo-German team's single-seater was no longer effective on that stretch of track, but because the changes made by the Red Bull technicians had significantly reduced the gap. Observing the telemetric comparisons, it can be seen how Hamilton was forced to keep his foot on the brake for longer, experiencing a delta of almost ten kilometers per hour, not so much due to understeer issues, but rather to help the single-seater in one of the sections where during he had struggled more in the first two free practices than the competition, i.e. the eight-nine sequence. Comparing the onboards of the two contenders for pole, it is immediately clear that Hamilton had tried to stay as far to the left as possible to help the subsequent rotation phase, while Verstappen was able to stay more to the center without feeling the blow, so much so that however, he was able to gain a few more cents, bringing his overall advantage above two tenths.

Turn eleven probably represents one of the most interesting themes of the weekend, especially for the different interpretation of the lines that could also be appreciated in free practice. If Mercedes generally tried to make the most of the braking phase with an aggressive entry, Red Bull looked for the opposite path, maintaining a slightly wider line at the entry that could favor the exit and the traction phase by putting the car as straight as possible in order to obtain the maximum footprint from the tyres. A tactic aimed at mitigating, at least on the first part of the straight, that speed gap which for some events now seems to have returned in favor of the W12. A behavior that is also clearly visible from the telemetry, with the curve appearing to be equal for about half of the acceleration, before the Brackley single-seater manages to once again impose its dominance, recovering precious tenths despite a small mistake by the Englishman in the same stretch.

If, thanks to what he had managed to recover on the straight, Lewis had forcefully returned to the fight for pole position, reducing his gap to just twenty-four thousandths of a second, it would be the third split time that would decide the fate of qualifying, a sector full of rather different challenges between them, between slow curves and high-speed curves. In this sense, it is immediately interesting to mention how in the slowest section the Dutchman had tried to limit the stress on the tires by maintaining a higher gear, in order to reduce rear wheel slip and avoid overheating. The interpretation of the entire section was also different in itself, with Verstappen and Hamilton choosing two totally different approaches for turn fifteen, but similar to what we had seen the day before: the Red Bull driver had chosen a wider approach on entry to then close right in the last phase of entry (blue line), while the Mercedes standard bearer had opted for the opposite choice (black line), cutting the first part as much as possible and then widening right in the final part of the entry, so so as not to excessively sacrifice the exit traction phase.

With about a tenth of an advantage on his side, it would be the last two corners that would decide the poleman. Turn nineteen was perhaps the decisive one, where Verstappen was able not only to bring about ten km/h more in minimum speed, but also to maintain a more linear corner with the same acceleration, thus continuing to gain even on the exit. With a small difference even in the last corner, where the number 33 had tried to lift his foot first to try a more aggressive approach on entry, aware that the finish line would be a few meters after the exit, Max had managed to increase his treasure up to the final two tenths, thus conquering his ninth pole of the season.