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Qualifying to forget for Ferrari, with Vettel’s crash and Leclerc’s exclusion from Q3: the Reds lose power compared to 2019 and the gap with Mercedes widens. Hamilton on pole, but with the soft tire question: Verstappen and Bottas could take advantage. The GP is live on Sunday at 1:10 p.m. on Sky Sport F1 (channel 207) and Sky Sport Uno (channel 201)
F1 RUSSIAN GP, SO THOSE CLASSIFIED
Lewis hamilton managed to take pole position number 96 of his career. If you look at the times, you can think that the job of the British champion has been quite easy but it has not been. It was a very difficult qualification for the world champion who risked a lot of being excluded in Q2. In this qualifying phase, the best time obtained with medium tires was annulled for having crossed the white line at Turn 18 on all four wheels. the red flag that the referee displayed after the Ferrari explosion by Vettel. At that time there were just over 2 minutes left for the session. When the green flag was displayed, Hamilton cleaned himself on the track with the soft one that, while waiting for the start of the session, had lost a lot of temperature, making the lap very difficult. He managed to miss the checkered flag for less than a second and, despite the tires not being in the correct operating window, he managed to qualify.
In Q3 it was easy for Hamilton that already in the first attempt he had practically mortgaged the start from pole. There was no fight for first position as Hamilton cut Verstappen by half a second and Bottas by more than 6 tenths. The Finnish rider was the disappointment of this session as, at least on this track, he had shown in the past that he had excellent speed. Verstappen’s performance was positive with an RB16 that seemed much more balanced than the one seen yesterday during free practice. They confirm us in the first positions Racing Point by Perez and Renault by Ricciardo and Ocon. The transalpine team tomorrow will have a great opportunity to accumulate important points to be able to overtakes Ferrari in the constructors’ classification.
How was Ferrari qualifying?
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At Ferrari, the hope was to be able to bring at least one of the two cars to the top 10. Once again they failed with Vettel who had to settle for 15th place and Leclerc for the P11. The Monegasque rider seemed to have the pace to qualify for Q3 but the low wall misinformed him of the time remaining for the checkered flag and this forced him not to occupy the necessary space in Kvyat. In doing so he made good use of the Russian driver’s wake in the first sector, but was then forced to abort the lap as the Alpha Tauri slowed him down. Leclerc awakened signs of nervousness And even in front of the cameras he did not hide his disappointment: “They told me that he had Ocon behind me about 1 or 2” from me, instead I think he was further back, I think he had more margin. Now I’m angry, everything is still fresh. I have to calm down and the race is tomorrow, the race is where points will be awarded. But for me it is a difficult weekend, until qualifying I was not driving well, so I started to find my rhythm. right in the rankings. But I couldn’t show the potential of the car and myself.
sorry. I don’t think choosing the tires for tomorrow is a big advantage. Let’s say I would have preferred to start eighth without choosing the tires. Now we will have to maximize what we have at the potential level ”.
By VettelInstead, grades ended when he went to knock his SF1000 coming out of turn 4. For the German driver, 2020 is one of his worst seasons in Formula 1 given that for him seventh time out of ten qualifiers failed to qualify in the top ten. The German driver, at the end of qualifying, seemed quite disappointed by what happened also because he had a good feeling with the car: “Unfortunately I lost control of the car. Already in turn 2 I had lost the car and in turn 4 I lost it again. I have never been able to regain control. I liked the car more this weekend. In qualifying, however, he was struggling, especially in the first sector. Obviously I tried to take more risks and it ended as it ended. I’m not happy, obviously, but if I have to compare the qualifying with the Free 3 this morning, I had more problems in qualifying.
If we analyze these classifications and compare them with those of last season we can get a very important result that highlights, for the umpteenth time, how much Ferrari-powered vehicles have lost maximum power compared to 2019. The only teams that failed to improve on last year’s times were Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Haas. There Scuderia Ferrari even managed to do worse than good 1.6 s.
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If we focus on the distance in kilometers against Mercedes, the improvements that the technicians expected with the introduction of the latest news.
Even the introduction of the single mapping it didn’t give the Maranello team any kind of advantage. In the first 7 races, the gap with Mercedes was 257 thousandths per kilometer. Since the Monza GP, with the introduction of single mapping, the gap has not narrowed. In fact, it is rose slightly bringing 262 thousandths per kilometer.
Bottas and Verstappen will start in high school
Tomorrow’s race will be very interesting because Bottas and Verstappen will start with the averages whereas, Hamilton, for the reasons described above, will be forced to use the soft. According to Pirelli it will be rather difficult to finish the race with one stop for riders who will start with the soft compound. They will have two possibilities: manage the red on the first stint to try to extend the life of the tires or try the double stop card. On a strategic level, the race is much easier for those who will start with the socks as they will have the opportunity to ride hard at the pit stop and reach the end of the race without too much trouble. THEThe Russian track has a medium downforce and a slight rear limitation. This means
Special attention must be paid to the rear tires, avoiding their overheating (cause of blisters) and their durability. If the hindquarters tend all overheatingThe former have the opposite problem because they tend to cool down. Problem that, these days, is creating big problems for all teams except Mercedes that thanks to THE System manages to warm up the front much earlier.
The exit could be decisive because those who leave behind could take advantage of the wake since the distance between the exit and the first takeoff is quite long. Hamilton’s soft tires could be an advantage up front thanks to the extra grip they can give compared to averages. Verstappen and Bottas, in addition to thinking about attacking Hamilton, will also have to look back as those behind will all start with the soft and could Take advantage of this advantage in the first few meters.
