Qualifying this time was a bit different than normal, with Pirelli’s new ‘Alternative Tyre Allocation’ making its debut. Where Q1 drivers use hard tyre, Q2 the medium and Q3 soft.
And this time, it was Max Verstappen or Red Bull taking pole position… It was in fact the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton who stormed to pole 104. Max was close behind in 2nd and Lando Norris rounded out the top three.
The full top 10 are- P1: Hamilton, P2: Verstappen, P3: Norris, P4: Piastri, P5: Zhou, P6: Leclerc, P7: Bottas, P8: Alonso, P9: Perez and P10: Hulkenberg.
A great result for Lewis managing to get pole, the only other team apart from Red Bull and Mercedes to get pole this season is Ferrari, so it’s good to see that teams are closing in on the Bulls.
Obviously another great result for McLaren, starting P3 and P4, they’ll be looking at scoring big points this weekend and looking at the podium aswell.
The star of qualifying, Zhou Guanyu and the whole Alfa Romeo team really as Zhou took 5th and Bottas 7th, they’ve had a rough season so far but they will be looking to optimise on others downfall tomorrow so they can score good points.
An okay result for Perez, but he still isn’t where his meant to be, but at least he got into the top 10 this time. He has a bit of work to do during the race, and he will be hoping to stay out of trouble aswell.
Now looking outside the top 10, Daniel Ricciardo on his return managed 13th for AlphaTauri, and outperformed his teammate Tsunoda in 17th.
Predictions-
My top five for the race are- P1: Hamilton, P2: Verstappen, P3: Piastri, P4: Alonso and P5: Perez.
I feel like we might have a few surprises along the way in tomorrow’s race, maybe a strategy which hasn’t gone right or a bad pitstop or a badly timed safety car? Who knows what will happen, but one thing is for sure… Hamilton and Verstappen front row? Drama!!
Jordan's Track Talk 
Leave a comment