Barcelona Formula 1 GP - Qualifying

Russell was back at the top after a couple of miserable weekends at Canada followed by Monaco where issues out of his control ruined his final result. He looked very consistent over practice and qualifying and pulled oneout of the bag to set a lap prior to the final run that was 2 tenths over what his teammate Antonelli had set. Russell was consistently the fastest over the middle sector and it showed in his final pole lap as well.

Good that he did too because Hamilton literally came out of nowhere to set a lap that was just 6 hundredths of a second behind Russell. P2.

Given the strong performance by Hamilton you would expect Leclerc to be somewhat close or better. However the Modegasque made an error at turn 4 initially seeming to catch the oversteer but ending up losing it an binning it heavily into the barriers effectively ending a good streak having got his brake issues sorted out. P10 as a result. Maybe that Ferrari quick start will help.

The Red Bulls qualified 5th and 6th having had issues all through the weekend and having the Norris in front in P4. Piastri did look the stronger of the two but Norris managed to steal P4 from Max. Piastri's last lap looked a bit out of shape. The tyres have such a narrow operating window in Barcelona with one quick lap being all they can deliver.

It's commendable that Isack Hadjar is putting up some very commendable performances in the last few racea to end up so close to his stories teammate who made former teammates look pretty ordinary. 

Audi has produced a very strong car in their very first F1 outing and the Hulk capitalised on that to just nip into Q3 at the cost of Lindbald who looked pretty strong till then. Lawson has been putting some very strong performances of late and ended up P8.

Williams has had a pretty ordinary weekend and it's pretty obvious that they still have quite a bit to go in terms for car performance with Sainz in P16 and Albon in P18.

The race start is going to be interesting with Hamilton starting alongside his old teammate and Antonelli eager to win his 6th race. Verstappen in P5 and Leclerc in P10 Will be hungry as well. Not to say that there rest fonthe pack will be sitting around twiddling their thumbs. With a long run turn one it's going to give plenty of opportunities. Depleting batteries in the run to Turn 1 may create problems in the following turns especially Turn 3 which is a long right hander flowing into 4. Game on.