Max Verstappen snatched Pole Position from Fernando Alonso at the last possible minute in a truly edge-of-your-seat qualifying session. Verstappen was down almost two-tenths on Alonso’s time through the first two sectors, but he made up that time and more in the final TWO CORNERS to take Pole Position. Charles Leclerc was initially third before getting handed a 3-place grid drop for impeding Lando Norris, his hometown curse hasn’t seemed to let him go. Completing the second row was Esteban Ocon in a fantastic qualifying for Alpine. Carlos Sainz qualified 5th and Lewis Hamilton qualified 6th after having trouble getting out of Q1 and Q2. Yuki Tsunoda qualified 9th and Lando Norris qualified 10th, having repaired suspension damage incurred in Q2. Let’s see how Verstappen was able to deny Alonso his first Pole since 2012.
Verstappen (VER) vs Alonso (ALO)
Alonso is under control through most of the lap. The biggest outlier favouring Alonso is at the entry to upper Mirabeau (T5), where he gains around one tenth. The Aston was quicker in sections that are longitudinally challenging, i.e., traction and braking zones as evidenced in the track map.The section where Max made up the most time was in the second part of the swimming pool chicane (T15-16). It looked as impressive as it turned out to be on the live feed, with Max giving no quarter and using every inch of available space.
Ocon (OCO) vs Leclerc (LEC)
A battle that turned out to be much closer than it should have been saw Ocon qualify P4 (P3 after Leclerc’s penalty), 0.082s slower than the Ferrari. The story here is very similar to the fight for Pole, with Ocon making almost all of his lap time up in the last 2 corners. At the second sector split, Ocon was almost 2 tenths down on Leclerc. The key here is to observe the gears that they were in. Esteban was holding fourth gear into La Rascasse (T18) whereas Charles opted to take a quick upshift into fifth before coming back down. The higher RPM allowed Ocon to use a higher amount of Engine Braking inro the corner, thus enabling him to brake later.
About Siddharth Anish
Mechanical Engineering student with experience in Aerodynamics and Vehicle Dynamics. My first words were Schumacher.