After a delayed start, it was time to see who could get the maximum out of their car in the Sprint Shootout to put themselves in a good position for today’s Sprint.
SQ1
In Sprint Qualifying 1; Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen, Zhou Guanyu, and Nico Hulkenberg were the five slowest drivers. Yuki Tsunoda will be disappointed to have missed out on a spot in SQ2 by just under a tenth of a second whilst Valtteri Bottas didn’t have much pace in his Alfa Romeo. Kevin Magnussen and Haas had a horrible strategy which saw K-Mag only qualify P18 whilst Zhou Guanyu seemingly had no pace. Nico Hulkenberg had an even worse time in his Haas as he didn’t even get a lap in which is just stupid. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen topped the session by 8 tenths over Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.
SQ2
In Sprint Qualifying 2; Daniel Ricciardo, Alex Albon, Logan Sargeant, Lance Stroll, and Fernando Alonso all failed to make it into the top 10 shootout. Daniel Ricciardo should be happy with P11 whilst the Williams pair of Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant didn’t even get a lap in. Sargeant should have, but he spun on his flying lap. The Aston Martin drivers also didn’t get a lap in and that was due to Lance Stroll crashing whilst he was on the wrong tyres. Not a good day for Aston Martin so far! Max Verstappen again topped the session, again ahead of Lewis Hamilton, but this time “only” by 6 tenths.
SQ3
In Sprint Qualifying 3, Max Verstappen set a 1:49.056 to just about take Pole in the Sprint Shootout. Max obviously did another great job, but the standout performance came from McLaren’s Oscar Piastri who only missed out on P1 by 11 thousandths of a second! Ferrari locked out the second row as Carlos Sainz only just missed out on Pole (by a quarter of a second) with Charles Leclerc a little further behind in P4 whilst Lando Norris will start 5th. Pierre Gasly also pulled out arguably the lap of his Alpine career (that I can think of) to get his car into P6 whilst Lewis Hamilton will be slightly disappointed to only qualify 7th. Speaking of disappointing, Sergio Perez was once again 9 tenths off his teammate and it’s getting ridiculous now whilst Esteban Ocon will start 9th after a positive day whilst George Russell failed to get in a competitive lap time.
Starting Grid for the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix Sprint and my Sprint Shootout Grades
Max Verstappen: 10
Oscar Piastri: 10
Carlos Sainz: 9
Charles Leclerc: 8
Lando Norris: 7
Pierre Gasly: 10
Lewis Hamilton: 6
Sergio Perez: 3
Esteban Ocon: 7
George Russell: 4
Daniel Ricciardo: 7
Alex Albon: 6
Logan Sargeant: 5
Lance Stroll: 2
Fernando Alonso: 3
Yuki Tsunoda: 3
Valtteri Bottas: 2
Kevin Magnussen: 1
Zhou Guanyu: 1
Nico Hulkenberg: 1
My Predictions for the 2023 Belgian Sprint
Max Verstappen
Carlos Sainz
Charles Leclerc
Oscar Piastri
Lewis Hamilton
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