Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Imola, 2021

2021 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix grid

2021 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton leads the provisional grid for the 2021 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.

Row 11. Lewis Hamilton 1’14.411
Mercedes
2. Sergio Perez 1’14.446
Red Bull
Row 23. Max Verstappen 1’14.498
Red Bull
4. Charles Leclerc 1’14.740
Ferrari
Row 35. Pierre Gasly 1’14.790
AlphaTauri
6. Daniel Ricciardo 1’14.826
McLaren
Row 47. Lando Norris 1’14.875
McLaren
8. Valtteri Bottas 1’14.898
Mercedes
Row 59. Esteban Ocon 1’15.210
Alpine
10. Lance Stroll No time
Aston Martin
Row 611. Carlos Sainz Jnr 1’15.199
Ferrari
12. George Russell 1’15.261
Williams
Row 713. Sebastian Vettel 1’15.394
Aston Martin
14. Nicholas Latifi 1’15.593
Williams
Row 815. Fernando Alonso 1’15.593
Alpine
16. Kimi Raikkonen 1’15.974
Alfa Romeo
Row 917. Antonio Giovinazzi 1’16.122
Alfa Romeo
18. Mick Schumacher 1’16.279
Haas
Row 1019. Nikita Mazepin 1’16.797
Haas
20. Yuki Tsunoda No time
AlphaTauri

Penalties

Yuki Tsunoda – Five place grid penalty for gearbox change. Required to start from the back of the grid due to multiple power unit components change.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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51 comments on “2021 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix grid”

  1. OMG, RBR is so fast, Mercedes has so much work to do…..

    1. Max made a mistake which cost him time. Perez is quick but I don’t believe he’s as fast as Verstappen. This was a failure from Max in the best car.

      1. Timesheet says he was faster than Verstappen, at least in Q3.

      2. Of course Perez isn’t as quick as Max over one lap. But over a race distance? That’s a different story.I’m just glad that atleast Max’s holiday of easy team mates is over and he has someone who will give him something to think about. With the new regs bunching up the pack it’s great news for racing.

      3. Did not see VER lap and the commentators did not say anything about any mistake. Then, the cases where a driver totally dominates his team mate are very few. Even HAM, with all the help of the team and no.1 status gets beaten by BOT 1-2 times per season. This could be very well 1 of those races where PER beats VER. Plus, this proves that GAS, ALB etc were liabilities indeed…. just as I suspected all the time.

        1. He went on the grass @mg1982 . In fact he did rather well to get P3.

        2. He went off the track at turn 2, they showed it on the replay. To still be within a tenth of pole, that car has some real pace!

    2. One more race where 2 things stick out again:

      – BOT is just tier2 material
      – the team is gravitating with all the force around HAM

      1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
        17th April 2021, 14:50

        this isn’t a race, it is qualifying. Based on practice which was more reflective on the race, bottas’s long run pace looked reasonable. Based on the one race we’ve had so far this season, Bottas’s pace looked more or less identical to hamilton. But just that doesn’t reflect on the whole season. Does last race weekend’s qualifying mean Perez is even worse than tier 2 as he didn’t make it through to Q3 in the best car? Not really enough time to judge much.

    3. Average RBR position is higher than Mercedes. Hamilton making the difference.

      1. @harrydmond
        Indeed!

    4. @mg1982 Max said himself in the post-quali interview that he had a poor Q3. He still finished less than 1 tenth behind Lewis despite that scruffy turn 3. Pretty obvious the RB was marginally the quicker package.

      1. Too much truth in this comment… you might wanna tone that down… Don’t you know Mercedes is indisputably & perpetually the quickest, & whenever they don’t get pole it’s because they’re sandbagging and/or Hamilton is average? ;)

  2. Half a second covers the top eight on the grid!

  3. An exciting QLF.

    1. +1. Really excellent session; full of surprises. Norris! Perez! Ocon!

  4. Get in there Perez! Nice

  5. Can’t wait for the pre-race article telling us Red Bull is really the favorite.
    Anyway, I’m glad for Perez, doing what Albon and Gasly couldn’t do

    1. Well if you’d watched Max’s lap you’d have seen he went over the grass @paeschli . He actually did very well to get P3, but keep applying the salt.

  6. What a statement from Sergio, well done, great lap! This season is looking very promising indeed.

  7. I’m all for giving young drivers time to adapt, but this is why red bull had to drop Albon and had to snap up Perez. Comparable to Verstappen in only his second race. Red Bull need 2 high calibre drivers

    1. Not sure Christian Horner agrees with you…

      1. Obviously I recognise the sarcasm here, but while his team leader might not have hooked it up today, I’m sure he’s happier than if he had his other driver lolling around half a second behind Verstappen (which would have been around P9 btw). Having RB 2nd and 3rd with Bottas in 8th means that RB can also split strategy, go long with one driver and possibly get an advantage from a SC or VSC

    2. I agree. The Mercedes strategy team have a challenge on their hands in tomorrow’s race. With two cars to one at the front, it is advantage Red Bull. Red Bull’s strategy team can finally be creative. I am curious which third dog will run away with the bone. It definitely is a win for F1.

      1. Pipe dream! As was often the case in 2017 and 2018 when stuck infront without Not, Lewis will just pull away. The only hope for RBR is a poor start from Lewis or a super start from Check on softs.
        It is only Ham that I have seen repeatedly able to stay within 2 second of the leading cars, I the last 4 years or thereabouts.

  8. Excellent grid!

  9. Great qualifying, soo close between everyone! Absolute steal from Hamilton, both Red Bulls making mistakes. So close that driving mistakes are being punished, Bottas makes small mistake and 8th!
    Feel for Norris, was on for a great position but the rules are the rules

    1. Yep, if you go outside the white line your lap don’t count.
      Except where it’s the red line.
      Or where we’re not even gunna bother having a look.
      Rules ain’t rules in F1, Sol.

  10. NeverElectric
    17th April 2021, 14:21

    Go Checo!!
    Loving this.
    If Checo stays ahead of Max by halfway, will RBR unleash team orders? HAHAHA

    1. I wonder if Perez is indeed ahead of Max in the race if Horner lets him go. Let’s hope the two Bulls do not drive eachother off the track.

  11. If Perez can be that close to Lewis (0.030), that should tell you how fast that Red Bull is.

    I assume Verstappen made a mistake somewhere or there was something wrong with his car; as he has at least 5 tenths on Perez in the same car.

    Make no mistake, the Red Bull this year is a rocket ship in qualifying.
    Mercedes know they are lucky to be on pole.

    1. “Sergio Perez underrated since 2011”

    2. Perez also made a mistake and might have beaten Lewis time @kbdavies. A time Hamilton might have also improved upon, although his lap was pretty clean. Max did make a mistake, he took too much kerbin early in the lap, went a bit wide etc, would have been a few tenths in it.

      Just imagine how it would have been had this been a Perez pole with Verstappen next to him :-)

      Certainly show that the Red Bull is there on pace, let us hope we get a good fight for the win tomorrow and for the championship the whole year.

  12. Though Max was not able to pull out the best lap, Checo proved that he is closer to Max than his predecessors. Good on Red Bull, now they can do what Mercs were able to do on Max last year. Interesting season ahead. I feel even if Hamilton is able to secure Drivers championship, RBR can snap up the Constructors trophy

    1. Only race 2, but that would be 2008 all over again.

  13. FUN!!! Now let’s race tomorrow!

  14. Great result for Perez.

  15. Great lap from Norris, even if it was deleted. He would be 4th if he didnt violate track limits.

  16. So, Liberty, do you prefer having a NASCAR-ish rubbish rather than this? Screw off!

    1. Exactly. I wish they would just leave qualifying alone

  17. NeverElectric
    17th April 2021, 14:27

    Gutted for Lando. That lap deserved a spot in the top 4!

  18. I’m glad the ‘Perez is no more than a mid-field driver’ crowd are getting their first helping of crow – there might be plenty to go around the rest of the season too.

    1. @maciek This was more a case of a slow lap from the “I’m not a robot” driver. VER made a mistake at Turn 2/3 that cost about 3-5 tenths and only just qualified behind PER.
      It’s a good start, but we’ll need a few more races to tell if the Mexican is doing any better than Albon or Gasly did.

  19. Alonso is immensely slow compared to Ocon. This is just the second race, and Alonso is already nowhere compared to his teammate. Half a second is too much for a driver of Alonso’s calibre. What’s even more staggering is that Alonso lost… to Latifi. Wow, just wow.

    If Alonso will be this slow in the next 5-10 races, he should just go. It was a really bad idea to go Alpine. It was a much worse idea to come back when you’re in your latest forties.

    I don’t think I was ever disappointed this much in Fernando.

    1. A bit harsh I think. It’s only race 2 after all, and as much as he said his preseason accident didn’t significantly affect his preparations, that may have had an impact. He’s been away for 2 years, cars and tyres have changed, I’m think mid-season will give us a better idea of what he’ll be able to offer. Alonso came back for the new regs, pretty sure that if the cars are more raceable he’ll be in there

    2. He probably just made a mistake in one corner. Come back to us at the end of the season.

  20. For Bottas Mercedes didn’t look very stable. Lewis did an amaizing lap. As did Norris. Where was Alonso? Gutted for Alfa Romeo

  21. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
    17th April 2021, 14:53

    One of the most strange things is to think that Latifi did a better job than Alonso. Or the williams is now a very reasonable car and Russell’s p11 isn’t quite as impressive as many are suggesting. I think the williams is just ok and both drivers were solid this time and I think Alonso was rather poor.

  22. Yuki better be careful of Nikita.

  23. Grandad Kimi shows “ace qualifier” Giovinazzi a clean pair of heals!

Comments are closed.