Saturday has been a mixed bag for most of the drivers on the grid. Sir Lewis Hamilton got the job done, stealing the pole position from Sergio Perez by just 0.036 seconds. The session started off with proceedings favouring Valtteri Bottas, but fumbles in Q3 forced the Finn to settle with P8.
Written By Tanishka Vashee, Edited By Aiden Hover
Lando Norris looked fast and was ready to pose a threat to Hamilton, setting brilliant purple sectors for a provisional P2 finish, but track limits led to the deletion of his time, putting him P7, behind his teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
Sergio Perez, who was gaining pace with every session, managed to use the momentum of consecutive good runs to shoot him up to P2, with his teammate Max Verstappen in P3. Ferrari brought in new floor upgrades to Imola and put up a good performance with driver Charles Leclerc qualifying fourth, narrowly beating Pierre Gasly who qualified an impressive Fifth. Gasly’s rookie teammate, Tsunoda, crashed into the wall in Q1, causing a red flag. He will be starting at the back of the grid tomorrow.
The Alfa Romeo garage didn’t look too happy, with both of their drivers being knocked out in Q1. Antonio Giovinazzi will be starting P17, behind Kimi Raikkonen. The rookie pairing of Mick Schmacher and Nikita Mazepin at Haas will be starting at P18 and P19 Respectively.
George Russell managed to achieve William’s best qualifying in some time with a very impressive 12th place, whilst fellow Williams driver, Nicholas Latifi, will be starting P14. Sebastian Vettel seemed to be having a rather rough session and had to settle for P13, while his teammate Lance Stroll qualified P10.
Fernando Alonso was outqualified by a teammate for the first time since 2017, as he finished P15 with his teammate Estaban Ocon starting tomorrow’s race in P13. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz will start P11 – the Spaniard looked visibly disappointed by his result.
The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix will start at 12:00 UTC tomorrow. We will expect to see an intriguing contest between Hamilton and both of the charging RedBulls, whilst teammate Valtteri Bottas starts the race all the way down in P8.
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