Verstappen Claims Pole For 2023 Spanish GP

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen claimed a dominant pole position for 2023 Spanish Grand Prix, ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Verstappen toped a rain-disrupted FP3 session which saw everyone run their qualifying simulations at the very start of the session, before he went on to top Q2 and Q3 to clinch his first Spanish GP pole position in a largely competitive Qualifying session full of shocks.

Sainz and Norris benefitted from mistakes by other frontrunners to qualify second and third respectively as Charles Leclerc could only qualify 19th on the grid.

Now, here is a roundup of all the action across FP3 and Qualifying for 2023 Spanish GP.

 

FP3

Despite bright dry conditions for the F3 race prior to FP3, the session began under darkening clouds as lightning lingered on the outskirts of the circuit as Williams’ Logan Sargeant led the entire field out onto circuit.

AlphaTauri’s Nyck De Vries and Yuki Tsunoda initially ventured out on the hard tyres but switched to softs, whilst Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly both opted to run their qualifying simulations on medium tyres.

Alex Albon set the initial benchmark time of 1m 15.851 in the fourth minute but was quickly displaced by various drivers, as Sergio Perez posted 1m 13.914 to go fastest.

Perez’s Red Bull teammate, Verstappen though went even quicker just under a minute later as he posted 1m 13.664, which saw him sit top after everyone set their opening flying laps.

Sargeant however lost the rear end of his Williams upon entry to Turn 14 in the ninth minute and slid into the barriers, which brought out the red flags and set the order with Verstappen finishing quickest as rain swept in during the stoppage.

Ocon and Gasly meanwhile finished 16th and 18th on the medium tyres respectively for Alpine, whilst everyone else set their fastest laps on the soft tyres.

The session resumed eight minutes later but nobody opted to venture out before McLaren sent Lando Norris out for an exploratory lap just with 26 minutes left on the clock, yet he pitted after his outlap due to the slippy track conditions.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc meanwhile slowly led a queue of cars out to experiment in the damp conditions, which were too dry for intermediates to work properly yet too damp for the slick tyres to be the correct tyre to conduct running on.

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll meanwhile slid wide across Turn 5 and over the gravel in the tricky conditions, as drivers began to push the limits.

Norris meanwhile gambled on the soft slick tyre in the closing minutes but conditions were still too damp, despite posting 1m 21.621 which led other drivers to try out the soft tyres with no late impact upon the timesheets.

Position	Driver	Team	Time
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1m 13.664
2	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	+ 0.250
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+ 0.408
4	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	+ 0.576
5	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	+ 0.600
6	George Russell	Mercedes	+ 0.614
7	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+ 0.689
8	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	+ 0.696
9	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	+ 0.955
10	Lando Norris	McLaren	+ 1.017
11	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo	+ 1.017
12	Nyck De Vries	AlphaTauri	+ 1.029
13	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	+ 1.092
14	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	+ 1.324
15	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	+ 1.441
16	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	+ 1.602
17	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	+ 1.870
18	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	+ 2.177
19	Alex Albon	Williams	+ 2.187
20	Logan Sargeant	Williams	+ 2.865

 

Qualifying

Q1

Despite the track having dried throughout the F2 Sprint Race following heavy showers in-between the end of FP3 and that support race, the wet weather threatened to returned shortly before Q1  as everyone raced out of the pits to put in a banker lap on soft slick tyres.

Tsunoda was first out on track but spun on his outlap after he lost his rear out of Turn 11 into Turn 12, yet was able to continue.

Sainz and Leclerc however sat in the pits until the third minute as Russell set a benchmark lap time of 1m 15.735 which several drivers bettered, with Hulkenberg eventually top with 1m 14.006 when the red flag came out with 14 minutes and 13 seconds left due to track conditions.

Albon spun at Turn 5 whilst De Vries and Bottas suffered separate spins at Turn 12 and Alonso ran wide out of Turn 14, which caused gravel to be swept onto the racetrack which necessitated the stoppage to allow marshals to sweep the track clean.

Hulkenberg’s time meanwhile was deleted for exceeding track limits before the session resumed eight minutes later.

Once the session resumed, Verstappen went fastest with 1m 13.660 ahead of Piastri by 0.031s. whilst Sargeant, Perez, Leclerc, Norris and De Vries were in the elimination zone come the 11th minute but De Vries soon improved to seventh.

Come the checkered flag as rain stayed away from the circuit, the track evolution ramped up with several drivers flirting with elimination.

Bottas eventually qualified 16th fastest ahead of Magnussen and Albon, as the trio outqualified last year’s pole-sitter, Leclerc who could only manage 19th on the grid alongside Sargeant who occupies the last spot on the grid.

Hamilton meanwhile topped Q1 with 1m 12.937 ahead of Norris and Russell in a British one-two-three finish.

 

Q2

With rain still posing a threat to proceedings, Verstappen and Perez were first out on track with the Dutchman setting a benchmark lap time of 1m 12.760 in the third minute, which nobody beat in their opening stints.

Once all 15 drivers had completed their first laps, the elimination zone compromised of; Norris, Piastri, De Vries, Tsunoda and Hulkenberg as everyone pitted ahead of final Q2 runs.

As the checkered flag fell, Perez suffered a shock elimination in 11th after he ran deep on his first flier at Turn 5 into the gravel.

Russell meanwhile was forced to settle for 12th after failing to get the tyres into the setup window, whilst he also nudged Hamilton onto the grass on the run to Turn 1 as the Mercedes pair almost collided at high speed.

Zhou, De Vries and Tsunoda rounded out the Q2 exits in 13, 14 and 15th positions respectively.

 

Q3

Everyone but Hamilton, Alonso and Hulkenberg ventured straight, out with Hamilton waiting until the third minute before he joined the action as Aston Martin worked on Alonso’s floor due to damage.

Verstappen however was unbeatable on his first flier with 1m 12.272 on fresh softs ahead of Hamilton who slotted into second on used softs, with Norris, Ocon, Sainz, Piastri, Stroll and Gasly rounding out the top eight as Alonso and Hulkenberg sat in the pits.

Hulkenberg however opted to run in the gap and posted 1m 13.229 in the ninth minute to go third fastest.

Verstappen ultimately couldn’t be defeated as he took his first pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix specifically, with home hero – Sainz alongside him on the front row as Norris, Gasly, Hamilton, Stroll, Ocon, Hulkenberg, Alonso and Piastri rounded out the top ten.

Post-session, Gasly was handed two separate three-place grid penalties for impeding Sainz and Verstappen in Q1 and Q2 respectively, which dropped the Frenchman from fourth to 10th on the grid for the race.

Position	Driver	Team	Time
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1m 12.272
2	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	+ 0.462
3	Lando Norris	McLaren	+ 0.520
4	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	+ 0.544
5	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+ 0.546
6	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	+ 0.722
7	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	+ 0.811
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	+ 0.957
9	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	+ 1.235
10	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	+ 1.410
11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	1m 13.334
12	George Russell	Mercedes	+ 0.113
13	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo	+ 0.187
14	Nyck De Vries	AlphaTauri	+ 0.749
15	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	+ 1.143
16	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	1m 13.977
17	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	+ 0.065
18	Alex Albon	Williams	+ 0.086
19	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+ 0.102
20	Logan Sargeant	Williams	+ 0.722