2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - Imola, Apr 16 - 18

[Just_a_fan]

Amazing qualifying! A real surprise that Perez outqualified Max this early in the season. I agree with one of the posters here that Checo will only get better as he gets more comfortable with the car.

Norris was another stand-out. Shame he went out of bounds and had to lose that lap but what a qualifying effort. Danny would definitely be worried about that. Also, kudos to Ocon for outqualifying Alonso. I never expected that to happen.

Lastly, amazing lap by Lewis there. Also, he looks very stoic after qualifying. Normally he's pretty pumped with adrenaline after a qualifying lap, but this time he looks very calm, and very confident. I feel like he is really in the zone at the moment.

Whatever happened to Bottas.... There'd better be something wrong with that Merc, since that qualifying performance was just way off.

The Lewis/Bono post/q radio messages speak of anything BUT confidence...

Exactly. Mercedes did not expect to be on pole, or even on the front row, judging by the radio chatter between Lewis and Bono. Neither Red Bull had a perfect lap, but that's down to the drivers, not the car. Lewis had as good a lap as he would have hoped for and seemed genuinely surprised to take pole. His demeanour afterwards appeared to be one of "what the heck just happened there?".

[JordanMugen]

The hards can do half the race but they are very slow compared to the medium, the medium lasts roughly double the soft.

Do you mean half, or is the medium more durable than the hard at this venue?

[NathanOlder]

Bottas lost pretty much 4 tenths in the first sector on both his Q3 runs. The first run we saw a replay of him losing the rear on the way in to Tamburello. No idea about the second run, anyone see anything?

[godlameroso]

Cold race tomorrow, it could possibly start on a slightly damp track. The soft tire will be very useful at the start if that's the case. It'll be a strong tire at the start of the race but it won't go more than 12 laps, and it's a 63 lap race. Ferrari will be a threat because LeClerc is starting on softs as well. The hards can do half the race but they are very slow compared to the medium, the medium lasts roughly double the soft.

Or, if there is an early (lap 10-20) change to Inters, Checo could be miles ahead with the soft/medium difference in those laps.

The real question is if Perez is ahead of Max in the Championship at the half-way point, will they ask Max to support Sergio?

It's very unlikely to rain during the race, it may start on a drying track, but that's it. There's also the possibility any little drops of rain miss the circuit entirely.

[godlameroso]

Bottas lost pretty much 4 tenths in the first sector on both his Q3 runs. The first run we saw a replay of him losing the rear on the way in to Tamburello. No idea about the second run, anyone see anything?

Sector 1 is the two chicanes, perhaps he out braked himself, costing him time on exit.

[HungarianRacer]

Amazing qualifying! A real surprise that Perez outqualified Max this early in the season. I agree with one of the posters here that Checo will only get better as he gets more comfortable with the car.

Norris was another stand-out. Shame he went out of bounds and had to lose that lap but what a qualifying effort. Danny would definitely be worried about that. Also, kudos to Ocon for outqualifying Alonso. I never expected that to happen.

Lastly, amazing lap by Lewis there. Also, he looks very stoic after qualifying. Normally he's pretty pumped with adrenaline after a qualifying lap, but this time he looks very calm, and very confident. I feel like he is really in the zone at the moment.

Whatever happened to Bottas.... There'd better be something wrong with that Merc, since that qualifying performance was just way off.

The Lewis/Bono post/q radio messages speak of anything BUT confidence...

Exactly. Mercedes did not expect to be on pole, or even on the front row, judging by the radio chatter between Lewis and Bono. Neither Red Bull had a perfect lap, but that's down to the drivers, not the car. Lewis had as good a lap as he would have hoped for and seemed genuinely surprised to take pole. His demeanour afterwards appeared to be one of "what the heck just happened there?".

The most bizzare thing to me is, Lewis' pole was only 2 tenths faster than Bottas' Q1 lap, which wasn't even the first timed lap on that set of tyres... Mercedes looked like a clear favourite in the beginning of qualy, but then somehow they couldn't benefit from a ruberring track...

[search]

The soft tire will be very useful at the start if that's the case. It'll be a strong tire at the start of the race but it won't go more than 12 laps, and it's a 63 lap race. Ferrari will be a threat because LeClerc is starting on softs as well. The hards can do half the race but they are very slow compared to the medium, the medium lasts roughly double the soft.

what makes you believe so? Sainz did ~20 laps on Softs in FP2, and basically had no degredation at all. And Russell did a great stint on Hards, so (at least in those conditions on Friday) it's very well possible to make them work

[Restomaniac]

Bottas lost pretty much 4 tenths in the first sector on both his Q3 runs. The first run we saw a replay of him losing the rear on the way in to Tamburello. No idea about the second run, anyone see anything?

Sector 1 is the two chicanes, perhaps he out braked himself, costing him time on exit.

Both times? Once is a mistake twice is criminal.

[Shrieker]

Bottas overcooked it into tamburello and lost the rear on his first run.

On his second run, he basically did the same (pushing too hard on the entry), but this time he didn't oversteer but slid towards to the outside, losing all momentum.

[djones]

I suspect anybody expecting Merc to be anything other than fighting for pole and the win will be in for a disappointment.

In my opinion, it's unquestionable that Mercedes had the worst setup problems and most issues to resolve, ranging from engine to handling. Because of that, they have the easiest quick gains to make and they have had 3 weeks or something to figure out what is happening.

And let's not forget this is Mercedes and Lewis. A quite formidable combo that won the last race... a race that was all but in the bag for Max.

Part of me also thinks we have not seen the mythical innovations yet.

Yep.

[214270]

RUS:

“It's no secret that Mercedes are struggling a bit with the battery deployment, and every single metre gives you a metre at the end of the lap. So I wanted to go into that mode as late as possible, as in halfway through the corner, before I picked up the power. Tyres were a bit cold, I wasn't fully concentrated. It contributed to a Pastor Maldonado moment!”

I guess Merc’s PU still isn’t quite right?

[dans79]

It looks to me like everyone was struggling with getting the tires into the proper temperature window before starting a lap, and then not overcooking them by the end of the lap.

I assume mostly because of the temperature at the track.

[Shrieker]

Hamilton vs Verstappen comparison

I think Verstappen would've snatched pole if not for his mistake in T3, but not by much (a tenth, maybe even less, but certainly not more).

It's very interesting seeing them see-saw against each other throughout the lap. Hamilton finally snatches the pole in Rivazza 1&2.

[search]

on German TV Marko said that Verstappen's mistake(s) cost him 0.2 seconds, so a potential Pole by a tenth should be about accurate, yeah

[dans79]

If anything, I think today shows that the Red Bull isn't the dominant car some people were claiming it was at the beginning of the season.