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Valtteri Bottas attended the Lewis Hamilton-Max Verstappen show in qualifying at the Portuguese Grand Prix, adding a new dynamic to the evolving story of the 2021 Formula 1 season.
A somewhat bizarre qualifying in changeable, windy conditions ended with the Finn bringing Hamilton into pole position by just 0.007 seconds. The seven-time champion drove a lap 0.38 seconds faster than anyone but failed to repeat it all weekend when it mattered. and Mercedes is turning Red Bull’s previous performance advantage on its head this year.
It was hard to work out in the end what was the most surprising aspect of the afternoon, but perhaps the most noticeable one was Red Bull’s sudden lack of pace.
Mercedes back on top
Regardless of Lewis Hamilton’s pole position in the last race at Imola, there is no question that the Red Bull was the fastest car over a lap in the first two races of the season. This was not the case in Portimao.
Hamilton set the fastest lap of the weekend, a minute 17.968 seconds in the second part of qualifying when he was 0.5 seconds ahead of the field.
In the last part of qualifying, he never came close – and no one else. It is true that Verstappen set the fastest time in the third quarter at 1: 18.209, but he had ruled that out for exceeding the track limits. And his next lap was just an 18,746, which was a good 0.4 seconds off Bottas’ pole.
The world champions have their first car upgrade of the season in Portugal. Still, Hamilton admitted that this level of performance was “not expected” from Mercedes, and Bottas said his pace “definitely put a smile on my face” after qualifying in the first two races of the season.
Hamilton wanted to be the first driver to reach 100 pole positions in his career – but was beaten by team-mate Bottas
However, it would be wrong to draw any definitive conclusions from this as it was a fun weekend with a gusty wind causing conditions to change frequently on a track with very little grip and tires that Hamilton was too tough for . Very few drivers felt that they had optimized their performance.
Certainly Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff did not take anything for granted – even if he acknowledged that his team had made significant progress.
“I’m not sure if we had the fastest car, but we made a big step forward,” said Wolff.
“We had deleted an 18.2 from Max because of track restrictions. On the other hand, Valtteri had a very good first lap in the third quarter. So I would say we caught up a lot in the agony. Maybe.” [we were] at eye level. We think we have a good racing car.
“What was the turnaround? Just cracking numbers, running in the simulator, trying to understand where the deficits are, just chopping away and breaking up all the gaps. Contrary to what is believed, there is never a single silver bullet.”
Anyway, from Red Bull’s point of view, this must be a somewhat worrying development.
Mercedes had clearly gotten out of hand in the tests before the season and had problems with the driving behavior of its car both there and in the first race. Still, Hamilton leads the championship after two races and now Mercedes has its first front row suspension out of the season.
However, it wasn’t what informed Verstappen’s misfortune over the weekend in Portugal – that focused on the lack of grip on the track.
Verstappen has been complaining about a lack of grip at the Red Bull all weekend
“I didn’t enjoy a single lap this weekend, just because of the condition of the track,” said the Dutchman. “The layout is fantastic, but I don’t think the grip we experience is nice. I know it’s the same for everyone, but for me personally, driving is not fun.”
In the context of Mercedes’ progress in qualifying, the obvious question is whether this will affect the race.
Hamilton and Verstappen were so closely coordinated in the first two races that it is impossible to say which team had the fastest racing car. Will it stay that way on Sunday?
“We’ll try to fight them in the race and see what we can do,” said Verstappen. “It’s not that easy to follow here, but if we have a good pace we will certainly put pressure on.”
It’s only three races in what is theoretically a 23-race season, but a lot is at stake on Sunday. Especially for Bottas.
The Finn needed this pole. After a poor performance at Imola, culminating in a crash with George Russell’s Williams, he’s already 28 points – more than a win – behind Hamilton in the championship, and his hopes of fighting for the title are in danger before the start to be over.
If he doesn’t beat Hamilton on Sunday, they pretty much will be.
Alpine above
Alonso didn’t manage to get his Alpine into the top 10
The good news of the weekend was the performance of Alpine, the former Renault team that got through a difficult start to the season.
Problems in their factory over the winter affected their aerodynamic development and the car was in the back of the midfield for the first two races.
But new parts introduced over the past two weekends and some crisp numbers resulted in a big step forward in Portugal, and Esteban Ocon is starting a promising sixth place on the grid.
Both he and his teammate Fernando Alonso looked competitive all weekend – and matched exactly. Until qualifying, that is, when the pace of the two-time champion slowed down and he ended up in 13th place, almost a second behind the Frenchman, and did not get any further beyond the second part of the session.
However, Alonso saw the positives. If he’s outside the top 10, he has a free choice of tires at the start of the race. That said, he can choose the media, the race tire of choice, of which only the Mercedes and Red Bulls and Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari were fast enough to make it through the second quarter.
“From P3 to Q1 we lost a lot of the car’s feel and the car’s performance,” said Alonso. “That was a bad thing. We’re still investigating what could be the reasons for losing a second of the pace.
“But nothing we can do now and I’m still pretty happy with everything this weekend. The car feels a lot better, livelier and more competitive in all sessions so it was a very big step forward for us. ”
“Maybe we are not in the position we should be, but at the same time we have a free choice of tires and that is perhaps better for the race as a team, to have two options with the two drivers. It was a very good one.” , very positive weekend. “
Alonso wasn’t the only one who suddenly had problems in qualifying – Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren and Lance Stroll at Aston Martin were both eliminated in the first session, while teammates Lando Norris and Sebastian Vettel made it into the top 10.
Like Alonso, they were a little confused by the sudden lack of pace.
