There was an exciting climax to the qualifying sessions in Austin, when Max Verstappen’s fastest lap was disallowed for violating track limits. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took the pole position. Valtteri Bottas was only 13th.
The qualifying sessions for the Austin GP on Friday saw a dramatic climax. Charles Leclerc drove to the pole while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen’s the fastest lap was disqualified due to breaking the track limits.
Verstappen first took the lead by five thousandths, but the race jury later rejected the Dutch round.
Verstappen was only sixth in qualifying. He had placed worse in the qualifying times this season only in Saudi Arabia, Miami and Singapore.
On his last fast lap, Verstappen made a mistake in the opening corner. As he tried to tighten up at the end, Verstappen made a decisive break in the last corner.
– I made a small miscalculation. It’s all about small margins when you try to go with the limits. This was disappointing, but Sunday will be even more fun, Verstappen said according to Sky Sports.
Verstappen will have to make history in Austin if he wants to win. Never before has a race from outside the front row been won at the Austin GP.
For Leclerc, the pole position was the second of the season. The first and previous one had come at the end of April in Azerbaijan.
– I love this track. I like the atmosphere around this track, the city and the country. It’s wonderful to be here, Leclerc beamed at the Texans in the track interview.
After Max Verstappen’s lap disqualification, Leclerc and his race engineer Xavier Marcos Padros they also had an emotional conversation. Padros had time to state on the team radio first that the round had been rejected and only then Verstappen’s name.
The Monaco native replied, startled and heated, that he would first like to hear the driver’s name in such radio messages, and then only the derailment. Padros then repeated the message as the driver wanted.
– I had to have a heart attack first, Leclerc further updated.
McLaren’s Lando Norris your pain was as high as second and the Mercedes Lewis Hamilton was third. Another Ferrari driver starts from the second row next to Hamilton Carlos Sainz. Next to Verstappen, Mercedes starts from the fifth grid George Russell.
Bottas lost to his teammate – lamented the car skidding
Valtteri Bottas it was thirteen. Bottas was coming off a strong final fast lap in the second section. The Alfa Romeo driver was reaching his best drive, but in the last sector the pace froze.
Bottas even lost to his teammate For Guanyu Zhou. The Chinese Alfa Romeo driver finished one place higher in 12th place. Zhou’s fastest lap was 0.160 seconds faster than the Finn’s.
– The last sector was a bit of skating. It wasn’t easy to get it to hit the spot. I think it stuck with that. Always in the last sector the car skated more, because the tires overheated quite a lot in this heat. That was the biggest problem, Bottas stated on Viaplay.
Bottas regretted the result, as he was aiming for the top ten. In the time trials in Qatar, the Finn finished ninth.
At the Austin track, Alfa Romeo has had to raise the ride height of the car due to the bounce of the track.
– Note that the performance is not the same as it would be at a certain ride height. I believe that many other teams have to make similar compromises. I don’t know if we have any more harm from this. But the adjustments are what they are, Bottas said and stated that in the only practices of the sprint weekend, there was no need to make big changes to the car.
– The settings are quite good. We try to get cleaner laps and thus better results. At least the race pace is not worse than the qualifying pace.
Sunday’s race is run at 10:00 p.m. On Saturday, there will be a sprint day in Texas. Sprint time trials are run at 8:30 p.m. and the actual sprint race at 1:00 a.m.