Russian Grand Prix – Qualifying: Norris on pole, Hamilton hits the wall

After the cancellation of the third free practice session due to a deluge, the qualifications started on time, at 3 pm local time (2 pm in France). However, even though the sun was seen again above the olympic park, the track was still largely wet at the time of the green light.

This is why all the drivers used the green tires, namely the intermediates, except for Fernando Alonso, who wisely chose to start with rain tires.

Max Verstappen did not wear himself out on the track as he only did an installation lap before diving into the pit lane and stepping out of his cockpit since he was already guaranteed to start from the back. In contrast, Charles Leclerc chose to push to the limit in order to learn more about his new engine, especially in tricky conditions.

Finally, the rain did not come to shuffle the cards and the eliminated from Q1 were logically: Räikkönen, Schumacher, Giovinazzi, Mazepin, and Verstappen. Note that a boulevard separated the two Haas drivers since the local racer was four seconds behind his German teammate.

During Q2, both Nicholas Latifi and Charles Leclerc opted not to drive at all as the Canadian will also be penalized for changing power unit.

So this reduced the fight for passage to Q3 to only three elimination spots. Once again, George Russell stood out by managing to take advantage of a track that was improving towards the end of the session to slip into ninth place.

The victim of the future Mercedes driver was Sebastian Vettel, who finished in eleventh place. The German then let out a sigh of disappointment on the radio when his race engineer brought him the bad news. The other victim was Pierre Gasly, who was unable to do better than 12th. The Norman driver was furious about such an elimination, angry with his team for not switching him to new tires at the end of the session.

The eliminated drivers from Q2 were: Vettel, Gasly, Tsunoda, Latifi, and Leclerc.

During the last phase of the qualifying session, George Russell tried a gamble by switching to slick tires. This forced all his competitors to imitate him in order not to take the risk of being beaten by the Williams driver.

On the other hand, when entering the pits, Lewis Hamilton hit the front-left on the pit wall, causing damage to his front wing. However, the British driver was still able to get back on track immediately.

But it’s ultimately a third Briton who came out on top, namely Lando Norris! The McLaren driver perfectly executed the strategy to secure his first career pole position. To find a McLaren at such a position, we have to go back to Interlagos 2012 with Lewis Hamilton. Two weeks after the double at Monza, McLaren is on a roll and continues to improve. Lando Norris will find himself on the front row alongside his friend and former teammate, Carlos Sainz, who knew how to take advantage of the situation.

Behind, Mercedes can be disappointed since Lewis Hamilton was beaten by George Russell and especially ended up in the tire barrier in the last sector, which damaged his rear wing. The mechanics of the black star will therefore have work to do tonight to check everything on the car of the seven-time world champion. Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez also disappointed as they could not do better than 7th and 9th.

The results of the qualifying of the 2021 Russian Grand Prix