Written by Aiden Hover, Edited by Daniel Yi
Valtteri Bottas will start tomorrow’s race from pole position following a stunning lap in today’s qualifying session. He will be joined on the front row by his teammate Sir Lewis Hamilton who, despite struggling with track limits infringements, missed out by a mere 7 milliseconds. Hamilton’s main championship rival, Max Verstappen, rounded out the top three but will be thoroughly disappointed to have lost out to both Mercedes as he too experienced issues with track limits. All three drivers struggled with tyre warm-up issues, which resulted in the two Mercedes drivers attempting to achieve pole position on the slower medium compound tyre in hopes of finding more grip as the entirety of the top 10 (with the exception of Bottas) failed to improve on their Q2 time.
Sergio Perez will line up in 4th following a mediocre showing today and a brief trip through the gravel trap after spinning at turn 4. Carlos Sainz will be pleased with his 5th place result, out-qualifying his Ferrari teammate in Charles Leclerc who will line up in 8th. Esteban Ocon will also be thoroughly impressed with his Alpine today as he finished the session in 6th just ahead of Lando Norris in 7th. Rounding out the top 10 is Pierre Gasly who will be happy to have cemented himself as a consistent top 10 driver and Sebastian Vettel who has finally shown signs of greatness from his new career with Aston Martin.
Mr. Saturday, George Russell, will line up in 11th as he makes it 3 out of 3 with Q2 appearances this season. The Alfa Romeo pairing of Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen will line up 12th and 15th respectively with Fernando Alonso in 13th being clearly disappointed to not be able to maximise his fast Alpine. Yuki Tsunoda made amends for his poor showing in Imola as he achieved 14th place in today’s qualifying session.
The shock elimination of Q1 was definitely Daniel Ricciardo. With his McLaren teammate lining up in 7th, Ricciardo will be particularly disappointed to only achieve 16th. Lance Stroll was also shown up by his teammate as he only achieved 17th. Nicholas Latifi heads out the two Haas drivers to line up 18th for tomorrow, followed by Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin locking out the last row of the grid.
The race tomorrow looks set to be a classic as a frustrated Max Verstappen looks to fight his way back to the front, whilst an ever-competitive mid-field looks more close than ever. Also, don’t forget that Verstappen won from third last time out, so be sure not to miss the Portuguese Grand Prix tomorrow at 15:00 BST.
Be sure to check out our Portuguese Grand Prix weekend preview by clicking here.
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