Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, Monza, 2021

2021 Italian Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying starting grid

2021 Italian Grand Prix

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Valtteri Bottas leads the provisional grid for the 2021 Italian Grand Prix sprint qualifying race.

Row 11. Valtteri Bottas 1’19.555
Mercedes
2. Lewis Hamilton 1’19.651
Mercedes
Row 23. Max Verstappen 1’19.966
Red Bull
4. Lando Norris 1’19.989
McLaren
Row 35. Daniel Ricciardo 1’19.995
McLaren
6. Pierre Gasly 1’20.260
AlphaTauri
Row 47. Carlos Sainz Jnr 1’20.462
Ferrari
8. Charles Leclerc 1’20.510
Ferrari
Row 59. Sergio Perez 1’20.611
Red Bull
10. Antonio Giovinazzi 1’20.808
Alfa Romeo
Row 611. Sebastian Vettel 1’20.913
Aston Martin
12. Lance Stroll 1’21.020
Aston Martin
Row 713. Fernando Alonso 1’21.069
Alpine
14. Esteban Ocon 1’21.103
Alpine
Row 815. George Russell 1’21.392
Williams
16. Nicholas Latifi 1’21.925
Williams
Row 917. Yuki Tsunoda 1’21.973
AlphaTauri
18. Mick Schumacher 1’22.248
Haas
Row 1019. Robert Kubica 1’22.530
Alfa Romeo
20. Nikita Mazepin 1’22.716
Haas

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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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39 comments on “2021 Italian Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying starting grid”

  1. Perez is very far yet again

    1. But at least Ricciardo is getting very close to his teammate.

  2. Perez’s slowness, though, even when behind someone.

    1. In fairness they said the tow is worth .7s? I don’t think Perez ever got it. But then again I don’t think ricciardo or Bottas had two laps with a tow.

      He needs to go faster. I was looking at a video of him storming through the field at monza in a sauber. Those were the days.

  3. RandomMallard (@)
    10th September 2021, 18:08

    Bottas pulling the traditional strategy of “Hang on I’m losing my seat? It’s time to turn into a mega driver”. See Perez in Sakhir, Palmer at Singapore 2017, Gio (maybe, not confirmed, but certainly at-risk) these last 2 races getting Q3

    1. True, I think giovinazzi would deserve to stay though.

    2. That’s just a coincidence, I don’t think it has anything to do with any new found inner race craft… BOT got a new revised engine which is worth a few extra km/h,

      1. Gasly is a quality driver and looked terrible at RB. Embarassing really, and people said that “verstappen was just that good” to make him look so bad.
        Now Gasly has become an accomplished driver within the smaller team and nobody seems to think it’s a good idea for him to return.
        Not because verstappen is that good but because everybody knows he would be left to the side again.

        They are invested in verstappen and that will last until he decides to leave and they take some time to find the next guy.

    3. Palmer was never a mega driver. He was P6 in Singapore 2017 thanks to the first nail in the coffin of Vettels career with bonehead move and the crash between the Ferraris, Verstappen and poor Alonso who had a mega start at turn 1

  4. The people who compare Perez to Bottas make me laugh, honestly…

    When will RB find a capable driver for that 2nd seat?

    1. Indeed, I don’t want to be too harsh on perez cause he’s been towing verstappen here, but I mean, wasn’t bottas towing hamilton in the end, and managed to do better than him? Why can’t perez do slightly worse than verstappen when towing him?

      1. @esploratore1 in the case of Bottas, Mercedes managed to position his car in the queue of cars in just the right spot so he also benefited from a tow from the cars in front on his final Q3 lap, so he was also gaining that same benefit.

        In Perez’s case, as Red Bull sent him out first to ensure he would be able to provide Verstappen with a tow, his position was always going to be compromised because he had no such benefit. As a tactic, though, it seems to have failed to deliver – Verstappen ended up 0.3s slower on his final run, and Perez is now starting behind two McLaren’s who look like they could have the pace to keep him at bay.

    2. To be fair they have been trying but Verstappen keeps blowing them away. Gasly, Albon and Perez are all accomplished drivers

      1. There’s probably some element of how difficult it is to drive a red bull fast compared to a mercedes, cause from their earlier careers it didn’t seem like bottas would destroy perez in similar cars.

        1. Or maybe Max is just that good

          1. Max gets a better car, apparently, Perez is behind with updates.

          2. Sure, but there are no 0,7 sec updates

          3. That’s true, but it is very frustrating knowing we don’t have a legitimate contest in equal cars.

          4. Well it’s not like they’re always running completely different cars. It’s more that when they only have one part, Max gets it.

        2. There probably is an element of that, but just find a driver who can.
          I doubt they need Perez’ money.

          1. Absolutely, you won’t ever see me defending people like albon, gasly, perez etc.; if a driver is not performing I’d replace him, I’d probably get alonso at this point, I had already suggested it when he was struggling at mclaren.

      2. That is untrue, Danny Ric matched Max but was forced out of the team.
        Albon accomplished? what? hes a mediocre journeyman only racing for RB because CEO owed a return favor to the Thai investors that invested in his energy drink startup in the 80’s
        Perez is overrated, does not deserve to tie Kobayoshis shoes when they was team mates, only in F1 due to substantial backing from Mexican billionaire carlos slim.
        Gasly is talented but pushed way too early and embarrassed himself , ironically the same is now happening to his current team mate Yuki Tsunoda..

    3. RandomMallard (@)
      10th September 2021, 18:21

      I agree that Bottas is certainly a better qualifier than Perez. But Perez’s racecraft and overtaking ability just seems a lot better than Bottas’ (see Sakhir last year, a lot of his podium drives with FI/RP, while Bottas generally struggles a lot when he’s behind people, such as in Monza last year or at Baku this year). When you look at the stats, all but two of Bottas 9 wins have come from the front row, including 6 from pole, and he was assisted in winning Russia last year by Hamilton’s penalty and in Japan in 2019 by Vettel getting a very slow start. It’s a shame that Perez has to put himself in the position where he has to do that overtaking though…

    4. Me. I use to outqualify Verstappen in the same car in F1 2021 videogame

  5. Like back at Silverstone the Friday qualifying just fell a bit flat for me & I never really got into it because knowing it isn’t what will be setting the grid for the GP just takes away a lot of the jeopardy that is a big part of what normally makes qualifying so exciting.

    1. Completely agree @stefmeister. This gimmick race weekend format is awful, It kills the flow of the weekend, Makes the real qualifying session feel less relevant & exciting, Takes action away from the real race & also devalues the real race a bit.

      Not to mention how this awful gimmick race weekend format makes some races more important than others due to handing out more points.

      It’s just an awful format with an awful gimmick race that just makes fans want to shout #LibertyOut!!!!!!!!! and #NoToGimmicks!!!!!!!!!!!!

      1. Looking forward to seeing your second Sprint Qualifying rant!
        You should do a rant on Haas too.

  6. In general mercedes clearly fastest on a single lap here, this also happened in the other event like this, silverstone, where however red bull was competitive on long run, so we’ll see what happens.

    Mclaren impressive, both very close to verstappen who had a very good first lap, and ricciardo really close to norris finally.

  7. Would be interesting if they could take the engine penalties between quali and sprint qualifying. Then we would get a real race on Saturday.

    1. @macaque Problem then would be if you did have a front runner starting the gimmick race from the back after a poor qualifying or some sort of penalty it’s then taking action away from the real race because any overtaking we would normally see in the real would would end up happening in the gimmick race.

      For as gimmick hungry as the Liberty Americanisation of F1 to Indycar+ is I think even they want to avoid the scenario where the gimmick race is more action packed that the real race as they then lose the ability to argue against those who feel the gimmick race does nothing but devalue the real race.

      1. Did you just put ‘gimmick’ 4x in a single comment?

        1. RandomMallard (@)
          10th September 2021, 19:43

          I think so. And too many gimmicks devalues the original point doesn’t it?

      2. “Indycar+” again? Come on, “CART X” is coming in the future!

  8. Someone show Perez where the accelerator is

    1. Ahah, good one! At monza you need it for 71% of the lap.

    2. Even ricciardo found it.

  9. Great final effort by Bottas! By the end of Q2 I thought Hamilton had this one in the bag, but now Verstappen is a serious threat for the main race on Sunday, if the McLarens aren’t going to interfer.
    Also great job by both McLarens! They could score big points on Sunday, 3rd and 4th are definitely possible.
    Ferrari did pretty well, considering Monza is a power track and they seem to have gone for a slightly bigger rear wing. Gio also up there in the top 10 highlights the progress Ferrari have made with their PU. And there is still one upgrade to come.
    Williams and Aston Martin are a little bit of an disappointment. I thought there was more speed in their cars than P11-14. Let’s what they can do in the sprint and the main race.

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