Uncertainty and accidents before the madring qualifying chaos
Everyone is more than warned. They already were… but now, even more so. Lewis Hamilton hit the wall in FP3, and so did Bearman at the end of the session. Those two red flags They made it clear that anyone can make a mistake at any time. The classification this Saturday afternoon (4:00 p.m./DAZN) in the Spanish F1 GP at Madring can be crazy. pure chaos. And there, no one can predict what is going to happen.
Nail a clean lap, without errors in the many traps that hide the curves of Madringone of the most technical and complicated circuits on the calendar, is very complicated. And at the same time, having to make the turn as close as possible to the walls and without being affected by the enormous traffic between the barriers is even more complex. And doing two clean laps seems almost impossible.
Therefore, making pools is very complicated. You have to nail the turn at the right moment because any accident with a yellow or red flag can leave everyone without options and greatly affect the classification.
In this context, it should be noted that Kimi Antonelli and his Mercedes and Charles Leclerc and his Ferrari were very competitive, alternating from the beginning with Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), at the front in a beginning of the session in which several errors were seen: Colapinto went wide, Sainz overbraked and narrowly avoided the barrier and Albon even slightly touched the wall. And then came Lewis Hamilton’s accident in the final corner.
The Englishman over-braked, went into the wall and damaged the front wing and nose. He tried to continue, but to return to the pits he had to go all the way around with a puncture in the right front wheel. They asked him to stop the car, but Hamilton tried to get there by dragging the ground on the asphalt and his front wing was damaged so that his session would not end there. But the FIA did not allow it.
He stopped at turn 14 and had to abandon FP3 early, with many doubts and without being able to test his final attack.
Kimi, Leclerc, McLaren… And Verstappen?
And after that, there were only 15 minutes left to go on the attack and test the classification simulation.
The ‘quali’ here is key because it is a position layout where it is very difficult to overtake. Although with a huge asterisk: anything can happen in the race due to the high probability of accidents and safety cars.
Before that happened, Kimi Antonelli is nominated as favorite after being the fastest in FP3, beating Leclerc (2nd) and a Piastri that woke up McLaren (3rd at 0″189) after a difficult Friday for those in orange. Norris was 4th at 0″236 and Verstappen, who is always there on a hands-on circuit, was 5th at 0″375 ahead of a George Russell that needs improvement (6th to 0″7).
All this, in a FP3 that ended with a red flag, the second of the session, due to a hard crash against the wall of Oliver Bearman and his haas.
Alonso and Sainz, away
Fernando Alonso was 17th, 2″2 from the head, one tenth behind Gasly, who marked the theoretical cut-off time to advance to Q2: that must be the objective of the man from Oviedo to try to start in the middle zone in the race in search of fishing in troubled rivers in a race of pure survival and in which your Aston Martin could make the difference because of how well it takes care of the tires.
Your engine Sling continues to weigh him down in the two small straights of the Madring and Fernando He will need his experience and reading of the situation in qualifying to place himself with the team in an ideal position on the track to be able to achieve clean laps that will allow him to hope to take advantage of the rivals’ mistakes.
For its part, Carlos Sainz was 18th at 2″6 with his Williams. The Spaniard from Madrid over-braked in the first part of the session and was able to barely save the front touch against the wall. Your Williams is awaywaiting for some necessary improvements that will arrive in the next race, in Baku. You have to grit your teeth at home and take advantage of any circumstance to maximize your results.
