George Russell was left cursing a technical problem with his Mercedes which ended the longest Q3 streak of any driver on the grid.
Change from practice to qualifying
Not for the first time this year, Red Bull’s Friday pace turned out to be far off what they were capable of. However in a departure from the norm McLaren found even more time from Friday to qualifying, which was enough for Lando Norris to snatch pole position from Charles Leclerc.
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Gaps between team mates
Lance Stroll being out-qualified by Fernando Alonso may be nothing new, but on this occasion the gap between them was exaggerated by the circumstances. Stroll left his final run in Q1 to the last possible moment and had to abandon it when he encountered yellow flags for Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s crashed Mercedes at the Nouvelle Chicane.
He clearly could have gone faster, but would he have been able to get into Q2 if he’d completed his lap? “I think so,” said Stroll after qualifying. “I mean, I was up quite a bit.” Alonso reached Q2 with a 0.228s margin, but Stroll was 0.165s slower than him through the first sector, so it’s far from a foregone conclusion.
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Team mate battles sequences
Stroll’s Q1 exit marked his 20th consecutive defeat to his team mate in a grand prix qualifying session. Stroll has by far the longest losing streak of any driver at present for grands prix, though he did out-qualify Alonso for one of this year’s two sprint races, in Shanghai.
Out-qualified team mate
| Rank | Driver | Streak |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fernando Alonso | 20 |
| 2 | Max Verstappen | 14 |
| 3 | Charles Leclerc | 6 |
| 4 | Isack Hadjar | 3 |
| = | Esteban Ocon | 3 |
| 6 | Pierre Gasly | 2 |
| = | George Russell | 2 |
| 8 | Nico Hulkenberg | 1 |
| = | Alexander Albon | 1 |
Out-qualified by team mate
| Rank | Driver | Streak |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lance Stroll | 20 |
| 2 | Yuki Tsunoda | 6 |
| = | Lewis Hamilton | 6 |
| 4 | Franco Colapinto | 4 |
| 5 | Oliver Bearman | 3 |
| = | Liam Lawson | 3 |
| 7 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | 2 |
| 8 | Gabriel Bortoleto | 1 |
| = | Carlos Sainz Jnr | 1 |
| = | Oscar Piastri | 1 |
Q1 and Q3
Russell’s elimination in Q2 due to a technical problem was an especially bitter disappointment for Mercedes as they finally seemed to have unlocked some performance from the W16 in Q1. “I hit a bump on the run out of turn one and lost power,” said Russell. “It felt like something electronic just disconnected.
“I tried everything I could to get the car back to the garage and then restart it when I stopped in the tunnel. Unfortunately, there was nothing more we could do.”
His streak of 18 consecutive Q3 appearances therefore came to an end. The last time he failed to reach Q3 was in Hungary last year, when he dropped out in the first round.
Eliminated in Q1
| Rank | Driver | Streak |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oliver Bearman | 3 |
| 2 | Franco Colapinto | 1 |
| = | Gabriel Bortoleto | 1 |
| = | Pierre Gasly | 1 |
| = | Lance Stroll | 1 |
Reached Q3
| Rank | Driver | Streak |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lando Norris | 15 |
| 2 | Oscar Piastri | 12 |
| 3 | Max Verstappen | 11 |
| 4 | Alexander Albon | 3 |
| 5 | Isack Hadjar | 2 |
| = | Fernando Alonso | 2 |
| 7 | Esteban Ocon | 1 |
| = | Liam Lawson | 1 |
| = | Lewis Hamilton | 1 |
| = | Charles Leclerc | 1 |
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