Verstappen takes sprint race pole despite error as Leclerc recovers for second

45 comments on “Verstappen takes sprint race pole despite error as Leclerc recovers for second”

1. 

   Ross
   3rd May 2024, 22:51

   So, when Ric doesn’t perform he’s washed and when he totally outperforms the car, it’s just a surprise…
   1. 

      Tristan
      3rd May 2024, 23:01

      I’m surprised, aren’t your surprised?

      I’ll be wanting the 2024 sports almanac of the future from the one person that wasn’t surprised.
      1. 

         Ross
         3rd May 2024, 23:03

         I’m surprised, but I think he’s effort deserves more than a passing mention. Especially given the multiple articles that have been devoted to his lack of form.
         1. 

            Esploratore (@esploratore1)
            4th May 2024, 5:34

            Yes, that’s a good performance, much like mexico last year or monza 2021, they’ve just been too rare, but on these rare events you see the ricciardo who drove for red bull back then.
            1. 

               Nick T.
               4th May 2024, 9:23

               It’s also possible there really was something wrong with the other chassis. He started immediately doing well when given the new car. He was on for a points finish in China until Stroll smashed into him. When asked if she thinks there was an issue with the chassis or it was psychosomatic, Ruth Buscombe said she’s seen both. There have been times they did find major flaws in the construction and sometimes they found nothing. If he continues to perform like this or even close to it, I think it’d be fair to say let’s see him back in the RBR ASAP. However, we need to see at least five weekends in a row of him performing exceptionally before we get to the point we can consider his reform truly restored.
      2. 

         Jere (@jerejj)
         4th May 2024, 6:36

         Tristan I like your BTTF reference.
   2. 

      Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
      3rd May 2024, 23:04

      + 1
   3. 

      Mooa42
      4th May 2024, 8:08

      So I guess Ricciardo got the good chassis this weekend?

      Does anyone know what parts Piastri didn’t have that Lando had?
   4. 

      RH
      4th May 2024, 11:33

      I still think he’s washed. Let’s wait for thr full weekend to end.
2. 

   Paul (@frankjaeger)
   3rd May 2024, 22:55

   That was wide open for Lando. Very disappointing. His lap on mediums in Q2 was good enough for pole.

   I read he couldn’t sort his tyres out – can anyone corroborate?
   1. 

      An Sionnach
      3rd May 2024, 22:59

      Some of the Lando open goal moments over the last year or so… I don’t want to say it. Come on, Lando!
      1. 

         Nick T.
         4th May 2024, 10:21

         The concerning thing for Lando is he was beaten by Oscar who had two-tenths worth of upgrades missing from his car. Lando has never been that great at nailing it on just one lap/one short run. The wet session last time out in China’s sprint quali benefitted him in that respect as he could do multiple laps. I suppose Verstappen and Red Bull showed the difference between a team and driver that is used to delivering consistently and a driver/team combo like Norris and McLaren that is learning the hard way about what is and isn’t required to become winners.
   2. 

      Tristan
      4th May 2024, 0:14

      Mistakes happen, he will be harder on himself than anyone judging by his previous comments.

      I hope he keeps his head up and the pressure off, at least it’s only for the sprint.
   3. 

      SpaFrancorchamps (@spafrancorchamps)
      4th May 2024, 0:50

      Perhaps he would had performed better had he spent some more time in the simulator, rather than partying on a boat. I like Lando. He is really fast. But his inconsistency and errors on crucial moments is not improving.
   4. 

      Nick T.
      4th May 2024, 9:29

      New nicknames: Lando Nervous (another “I should have been on the front row” quali), Lance Skrull (those times when it looks like another, better driver has stolen his body) and Melbourne Again or Australia’s new/old golden boy(we’ll have to see if DR delivers in the race and Piastri struggles per usual).
      1. 

         Crawliin-from-the-wreckage-(Unhinged) (@davedai)
         4th May 2024, 10:21

         Well “Alex” would sit well after his reprise complete with bloodied tape of MM’s role in A Clockwork Orange
3. 

   Tristan
   3rd May 2024, 22:56

   Mega result from Ricciardo! Let’s see if he can have a good start and keep it clean tomorrow.
   1. 

      F1Genova (@f1genova)
      4th May 2024, 2:48

      I just hope he doesn’t put it into the back of CL
4. 

   An Sionnach
   3rd May 2024, 22:57

   Ricciardo did well, but I was most impressed with Ruth Buscombe talk about the strategies with so much punch and energy. The whole F1TV team seemed giddy, which was a bit of fun. It’s a relief to be free from the awful Sky team.
   1. 

      PacificPR (@streydt)
      4th May 2024, 7:10

      Yeah she was great! It was very fun listening to FP1.
   2. 

      Nick T.
      4th May 2024, 9:32

      Who’d have thought it’d be great to have someone who actually knows what they’re talking about in the box? I also like the French guy (Kimi’s old race engineer) they have do the pit lane reporting every four or five races. Unlike Buxton’s blather, he actually tells us about stuff I never knew before and which will be relevant in terms of what to expect and interpreting results .
5. 

   mars
   3rd May 2024, 23:00

   The main reason for these strange lap times (strange fluctuation in lap times) and knife-edge performance characteristics in F1 is due to the garbage that Pirelli offers as top performance tires. It is very sad that F1 stuck with Pirelli.
   1. 

      Jere (@jerejj)
      4th May 2024, 6:35

      & limited time in each phase.
6. 

   Kribana (@krichelle)
   3rd May 2024, 23:10

   Soft tyres don’t look good for this weekend it seems. Maybe Mercedes saving a set of medium tyres might not look too bad on them after all, even though they still believe Hamilton and Russell can extract crazy laptimes from their weird car. At this point, Toto is already going to get more blame on the performance.
7. 

   Chris Horton
   3rd May 2024, 23:18

   Superb result for Ricciardo. Really pleased for him.
8. 

   Edvaldo
   3rd May 2024, 23:28

   Another letdown by norris.
9. 

   Yes (@come-on-kubica)
   3rd May 2024, 23:34

   Ricciardo looks like he’s having another decent weekend. It was harsh after 3 races but he can overdeliver, Tsunoda can’t.
   1. 

      Not another
      4th May 2024, 1:05

      Does anyone know what TSU’s deleted laptime was in SQ2?
      Probably not fully indicative but might provide a reference.
   2. 

      Esploratore (@esploratore1)
      4th May 2024, 6:07

      Yes, however he really needs to get a result: other good quali he had ended with a bad start and a crash, he mustn’t get involved in incidents, I know stroll’s one wasn’t his fault, and get some points.
   3. 

      Erkr
      4th May 2024, 17:46

      Overdeliver? Rubbish, TSU overdelivered Abu Dhabi 2021, Brazil 2023, early 2023. TSU 8, RIC 5
10. 

    t1redmonkey (@t1redmonkey)
    3rd May 2024, 23:46

    That was disappointing from Lando. I think he made some sort of mistake in S1 because if I remember correct he was like 8 tenths slower than Max on the first sector alone.
    1. 

       Esploratore (@esploratore1)
       4th May 2024, 6:08

       He was indeed, verstappen had a .0 and he had a .8, on top of that how comes piastri beat him by 3 tenths with norris having the upgraded car? Clearly, even if mclaren is bad on soft tyres, there was more to give than 6th in q3.
11. 

    Asd
    4th May 2024, 0:04

    The Q3 with everybody doing just 1 lap was a joke.

    I watched the British Sky broadcast and they didnt even mention Ricciardo’s performance during the session.
    1. 

       Tristan
       4th May 2024, 0:12

       To be fair I wouldn’t be in a hurry to talk about the “veecarb” either, what an embarrassment of a name to be associated with. It doesn’t exist in any shape or form. Might aswell be called the goobitygoo or malarky.
       1. 

          SpaFrancorchamps (@spafrancorchamps)
          4th May 2024, 0:51

          Hideous livery also.
          1. 

             Nick T.
             4th May 2024, 9:41

             The livery is amazing. The name is cringe, but you can talk about a driver without saying “Visa Cash Grab RB.”
       2. 

          Esploratore (@esploratore1)
          4th May 2024, 6:09

          I said I would just call it toro rosso and I do, back to original names since the new ones are so horrible!
          1. 

             Nick T.
             4th May 2024, 9:43

             Yup, I solely refer to them as Toro Rosso. Even if you remove horrendous sponsor names, RB sounds confusing. You could be referring to RBR.
    2. 

       Jere (@jerejj)
       4th May 2024, 6:37

       Asd I agree & thus, maybe switching to the 2003-05 style single-lap format for sprint qualifying final phase would be a decent idea, after all.
    3. 

       Nick T.
       4th May 2024, 9:39

       They love hating on Ricciardo and Alonso and saying as little as possible or ignoring it completely when they’ve done anything noteworthy. They’ll talk for hours about Russell though, how impressive and cool as a cucumber this kid Piastri is or why/how the best driver of all time is qualifying 18th (whether it’s because Mercedes made a mistake, he’s checked out and thinking about Ferrari, his car has an issue or Russell’s time at Williams has given him an advantage over Lewis in driving difficult cars). I’m happy they at least seem to mention the Hulk’s impressive performances for 45-60 seconds.
12. 

    Jere (@jerejj)
    4th May 2024, 6:35

    Sargeant finally managed to out-qualify Albon & on merit, given Albon only managed to be faster by cheating.
    Stroll was also sprint qualifying’s positive surprise (& even out-qualify Alonso on merit) & even more so Ricciardo, who managed to beat not only AMs, Mclarens, & Mercs but even a Ferrari.
    One Mercedes failing to progress from Q2 is another thing, but both drivers simultaneously failing at that was somewhat surprising.
    What was Bottas doing, though? Even if a race engineer doesn’t warn in time, a driver should always avoid slow driving on the racing line as much as possible, so in this case, he should’ve switched to the right immediately after crossing the timing line to avoid all risks, but he didn’t bother, so totally on him.
    Perhaps having SQ3 like the entire qualifying format in 2003-05 wouldn’t be such a bad idea, after all, but only for sprint qualifying’s final phase.
    1. 

       Nick T.
       4th May 2024, 9:51

       Yeah, that was a weak excuse by Bottas and while I understand his anger about his race engineer being replaced with zero warning, the complaint just made him look like he was both making an excuse and using the opportunity to be petty toward his new race engineer.

       Williams in general is just a huge let down this year. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, it seemed like a very bad idea to ditch a platform that was giving them good results, especially when Vowles knew or should have known it would be really hard to produce an all new chassis design in time for the season let alone have the capacity to test and update it with decent regularity. Now, it just seems like they have a car that is bad at everything instead of a car they knew would be highly competitive on high speed tracks and which was even coming good on twisty tracks like Zandvoort.
    2. 

       Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
       4th May 2024, 10:22

       Stroll seems to be as good as alonso about half the time during the sprint qualifying/races over the this and the previous season. I feel alonso acts like he just couldn’t care less for them. Twice he’s made contact or an error and then retired during the race. And in others, his pace has looked more or less matched.
13. 

    Moi
    4th May 2024, 10:07

    Liked Max’s first comment on the radio: ‘lol’

    He knew he bungled his lap, others (notably Norris) just bungled it even worse. Still, Mclaren might actually be in with a shot of winning if their pace holds on raceday.
14. 

    MichaelN
    4th May 2024, 10:48

    Even if Q3 was a bit of a letdown with so many drivers failing to string together a great lap, the highlights were surprisingly good. Lots of clips from across all parts of the track, and a big uninterrupted chunk of the pole lap. Much, much better than the static S/F shot that plagues so many qualifying highlights.

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