Imola Grand Prix 2021: Qualification Analysis

In qualifying for the Imola GP 2021, Lewis Hamilton secured the 99th pole position of his career. He will be challenged on Sunday by Red Bull Racing drivers Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen, who qualified second and third respectively.

At the end of the third quarter, the top eight drivers just separated from each other, all within half a second of the pole-sitter’s pace. After unmasking the Red Bull RB16B’s true potential, Perez and Verstappen pose a serious threat to the reigning world champion.

As suggested in Sportskeeda’s Imola GP practice analysis, the track penalizes the slightest mistake, and getting a clean lap around the tricky layout can be challenging. Last year’s pole-sitter Valtteri Bottas proved this after struggling to qualify in eighth, far from his pole-sitter team-mate Hamilton.

Hamilton clinched pole in qualifying, but Red Bull has the advantage in the race

Right off the bat, Yuki Tsunoda suffered a shunt in Q1, which proved how costly a mistake in Imola can be. The Japanese rookie followed behind at the wheel at the exit of the Alta variant and could not avoid a massive tank slapper that fired his AlphaTauri backwards into the crash barriers.

While the team’s factory is only 10 miles off the track, its mechanics have a massive rebuild on their hands. The incident brought the red flag and left the drivers little leeway to improvise their laps in a shortened qualifying session.

In Q1, both Mercedes drivers were leading with 1-2, with Bottas being the faster of the two. McLaren’s Lando Norris had moved up to third place by this point, two tenths slower than Hamilton and one tenth faster than Verstappen, who finished fourth.

Norris was fastest in the first sector (23.683 seconds) and Bottas in the second and third (25.747 and 25.008 seconds, respectively). Of the two Mercedes, Bottas was the only driver who could string together a decent lap.

Both Alfa Romeo and Haas were eliminated in Q1 and Tsunoda remained the only driver who did not set a time. Since all drivers used the soft compound tire (C4), the leeway was tight.

In Q2, the five drivers attempting a time lap on the medium compound tires (C3) were Hamilton, Verstappen, Bottas and Willams drivers George Russell and Nicholas Latifi.

The middle class mixed up the top half of the grid, with Perez setting the fastest lap (1 minute 14.716 seconds), Norris finishing second, followed by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton opted for the middle mix in Q2. (Photo by Bryn Lennon / Getty Images)

In Q2, Hamilton, Verstappen and Bottas qualified fifth, sixth and seventh on the middle and proved how difficult it can be to do a quick lap on the site in cold weather, as it takes an extra lap to get the optimal temperature window to reach.

Norris had flashed the first sector in 23.671 seconds, an increase in his performance in the first quarter. Verstappen and Bottas were fastest in the second (25.657 seconds) and third (25.008 seconds) sectors.

Q2 also saw the shocking elimination of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who was overtaken by team-mate Leclerc by four tenths of a second and retired by a narrow margin of less than a tenth. With such a tight field in terms of the pace of a lap, a gap of four tenths was enough to make room for another seven cars to divide the two Ferraris.

Aston Martin drivers Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel were also two tenths of a second apart. However, there were two cars that separated the two and eventually eliminated Vettel from the top 10.

Edited by Sandeep Banerjee

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