Pirelli selected their most durable tyre compounds for the race, specifically the C1, C2, and C3, designated as the hard, medium, and soft tyres respectively.

Alonso’s most recent race win in Formula 1 occurred in Spain in 2013.

Free Practice 1

As is allowed at some GP weekends, development drivers Victor Martins replaced Alex Albon at Williams and Ryo Hirakawa replaced Esteban Ocon at Haas. Victor Martins is a French racing driver, who competes in the FIA Formula 2 Championship for ART Grand Prix as part of the Williams Driver Academy. Victor is 23 years old. Ryo Hirakawa is Japanese and is a Haas reserve driver. Ryo is currently competing for Toyota Gazoo Racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship. He was Super GT GT500 champion in 2017 and finished runner-up in Super Formula in 2020. This 31 year old is the Hypercar class winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans alongside co-drivers Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley. This trio has also won the 2022 and 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship.

An early time set by Lando Norris (McLaren) was 1:16.095 on hard tyres. His pole performance last year was 1:11.383.

Franco Colapinto (Alpine) ended the session early with a hydraulic leak.

At the end of the hour long session Lando Norris (McLaren) was the fastest with 1:13.718. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) was second, 0.367 seconds slower. Third was Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) on medium tyres, just 0.011 seconds behind Max on soft tyres.

Free Practice 2

After 20 minutes the order was George Russell (Mercedes) fastest followed by Lando Norris (McLaren), Max Verstappen (Red Bull), Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari).

Then came some soft tyre running. George Russell (Mercedes) improved to 1:13.286 seconds. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Lando Norris (McLaren) set an identical time of 1:13.070 to then be second and third. Max had set his time ahead of Lando so was second.

Oscar Piastri (McLaren) then had a lap to take one’s breath away. A clear three sector purple lap. Glorius. He set a time of 1:12.760. That was over half a second faster than George’s time at that time.

Geroge did improve his time before the end of the session, but it was still 0.286 seconds behind Oscar. Oscar’s lap was just scintillating to watch.

Free Practice 3

In the true qualifying simulations, without knowing fuel loads and engine modes, the session was very illuminating. The previous pecking order, other than the McLaren 1, 2, was disrupted. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) was third with George Russell (Mercedes) just 0.009 seconds behind. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) in fifth with a 0.236 second gap to George but only 0.007 seconds ahead of Isack Hadja (Racing Bulls).

Even the McLaren 1, 2 was skewed as Lando was 0.526 seconds behind Oscar. Oscar’s fastest lap appeared to be normal and without the intensity that he seemed to apply in FP2, even though it was 0.373 seconds faster.

Here are all the free practices times, the order of which is how they finished in FP3-

Free Practice Times

The graph showing each drivers performance through free practice-

All The FP Times

Qualifying

Q1

After 10 minutes, and most of the first runs completed, it was as expected with the two McLarens on top. Oscar Piastri with 1:12.551 and Lando Norris with 1:12.799. A minute later Max Verstappen (Red Bull) split the McLarens with a 1:12.798, just 0.001 seconds faster than Lando Norris.

After 15 minutes there was a long cue of cars in the pit lane. Franco Colapinto (Alpine) was at the head of it and radioed that he had a problem. He was able to just creep ahead. Other cars overtook him in the pitlane to get out on the circuit. Franco pulled off onto the grass at the end of the pit lane and did not have his second timed lap.

Eliminated in Q1 besides Franco were Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber), Esteban Ocon (Haas), Carlos Sainz (Williams) and Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull). These eliminated drivers as well as Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), Alex Albon (Williams) and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) did not have a second timed run. This was caused by the Haas of Franco Colapinto breaking down at the end of the pit lane except for Fernando Alonso who chose to run only once.

What’s up with Yuki Tsunoda? Qualifying 20^th in a Red Bull? Is this a car that only Max Verstappen can drive? These and a few other questions must be answered and answered fast. Red Bull, who have six constructors’ championships and are currently supporting the current driver champion, need a Max Verstappen twin or better still a clone.

Q2

Here is what happened in Q2-

Spain Q2 Change

Q3

After 6 minutes, the halfway point, only Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Isack Hadja (Racing Bulls) had not set a time. Lando Norris topped the timing sheets with a 1:11.819 lap which was 0.017 seconds ahead of his teammate Oscar Piastri. George Russell (Mercedes) was 0.256 seconds behind. Fourth was Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) then Max Verstappen (Red Bull) followed by Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari), Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) and Pierre Gasly (Alpine).

This is the moment that the drivers and racing fans love. The cars are now the fastest they will ever be. The fuels are minimal. The power is as much as there can be. The aerodynamics are tuned to maximise the speed on this particular circuit as much as the very clever engineers can. Every driver striving for that perfect lap, to extract the tiniest shorter fraction of a second from each piece of it.

Oscar Piastri did an as perfect a lap as anyone could. He managed a 1:11.546 lap. Its probable that that was the maximum that the circuit in its very hot condition could produce. It was however 0.163 seconds slower than last years pole of 1:11.383 set by Lando Norris. Lando could only manage a 1:11.755 which was 0.209 seconds slower than that of his teammate.

The top ten Q3 shootout looked like this-

Qualifying Top Ten Shootout

The full qualifying times-

All Qualifying Times

The graph of the top 10 qualifiers-

Top 10 Qualifiers

Race

What a start to a race. That 579 meter straight to turn one allowed a lot of positional jockeying and a melee of 3 cars abreast into the turn. Cars into the runoffs. Overtakes.

Out of this seeming chaos, Max Verstappen was ahead of Lando Norris, both Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc ahead of George Russell (Mercedes) and Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber) up 4 places.

Alex Albon (Williams) and Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) clashed which saw Alex Albon with damage to his front wing. On lap 26 they did the same again with the same result. Not a good day for Williams and Alex Albon. Two front wings written off. In their second clash Alex was adjudicated to have gained an advantage off track and given a ten second penalty. He served that in the pits. Did another lap, still with that damaged front wing, and retired from the race.

On lap 14, Max Verstappen pitted, likely aiming for an undercut and possibly switching to a three-stop strategy.

The undercut worked as when the McLarens pitted, Max Verstappen led the race until he again pitted on lap 29. He came out behind Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) who he overtook on lap 36.

That was how the race would have finished. Two McLarens, one Red Bull and then alternating Ferraris and Mercedes. Kimi Antonelli suddenly lost power in his Mercedes and had to pull over off the circuit. Race control deployed a safety car and only 4 cars did not pit for fresh tyres. It was the 3 pitstop for those that pitted except for both Red Bull cars as it was their fourth pitstop. Unfortunately, Max Verstappen had only new hard tyres.

Much has been written about what happened after the safety car. Opinions range from Max Verstappen “should be banned for life from any form of racing” to “that 10 second penalty he received was grossly unfair”. What is abundantly clear is that no matter what the provocation is, a professional driver needs to always be professional, no matter how talented. Was there provocation? You, be the judge.

What I can say is that when the restart happened after the safety car came in was breathtaking. Max’s car on cold hard tyres swerved in the turn under acceleration. For most drivers, that would have been end of race with the car off circuit or worse. That save was among the most brilliant pieces of car control you could ever witness.

Max Verstappen is a single penalty point away from the humiliation of a one-race ban. This has happened recently when Kevin Magnussen was banned from the 2024 Italian Grand Prix. Max’s 11 out of 12 penalty points on his super licence do not start to reduce until after the Austrian Grand Prix.

The alluded to ten second penalty was applied by race control to Max Verstappen (Red Bull). This dropped him from fifth to tenth place and from 10 points to 1.

Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber), who had accomplished a great overtake of Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) on the penultimate lap, ended in fifth for his highest points tally for a race this year. This lifted Sauber from last to joint eighth in the World Constructors’ Championship.

At long last the two times World Drivers’ Championship winner Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) scored some race points for 25025. Very different from Spain 2013.

The positional changes in the race were-

Gains and Losses

The Full Lap Chart

Lap Chart

This race leaves the World Drivers’ Championship points like this-

WDC Points

And graphically

Top 10 Driver’s WDC Points

The World Constructors’ Championship points difference are-

WCC Points

And graphically-

Constructors’ Championship Graph

Next race in Montreal.