Ferrari Pains and Aston Martin Gains on Friday in Brazil

Among them is Ferrari who, after their best result of the year so far with a P2 in Mexico, barely made any waves during Friday’s Sprint Qualifying. Charles Leclerc clung on until SQ3, but couldn’t find much more lap time in the end, and will start P8 on Saturday’s Sprint. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton didn’t even make it that far, getting eliminated in SQ2. He will be lining up in P11 for the sprint.

The team chose to leave their medium and soft tires off during Friday morning’s free practice session, opting to save them for the later sessions. While this did leave them with some extra sets to work with, it also meant that Leclerc and Hamilton were driving on those compounds with little prior experience, unlike most of the other drivers around them. 

To add insult to injury, both drivers are under investigation; Hamilton for a potential yellow flag infringement and Leclerc for potentially impeding the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll in SQ3. If either of those comes through, they could be facing further grid drops for the sprint, putting them at an even bigger disadvantage.

Yet speaking of Aston Martin, both of their drivers fared excellently during Sprint Qualifying. Fernando Alonso set the fastest lap time of SQ2 early on in the session, and could not be beat. Both he and Stroll made it comfortably into SQ3, and will be lining up in P5 and P7, respectively.

This marks one of their best qualifying results as a pair since the start of the year and, if they can keep up the pace, sets the team up comfortably to score a few extra points and give them an edge in the fight for P6 of the Constructors’ Championship. They are currently sitting in seventh, just three points behind VCARB, who had mixed results in the Friday session. Isack Hadjar qualified in P9, while Liam Lawson was at the back of the field in P17.

The full results of the São Paulo Sprint Qualifying can be found below:

Cover photo via the Ferrari Media Centre.

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