Esteban Ocon offered his best qualification for a year and the 2021 Spanish Grand Prix. Author of the fifth fastest time, the Alpine driver finishes “best of the others” behind Ferrari and Red Bull, stables above the lot at the start of the season. His teammate Fernando Alonso took seventh place, a sign of the speed of the French single-seaters on the vertiginous circuit of Jeddah. Good performance also Pierre Gasly, author of the ninth time with a broken car. The organization of this Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia was uncertain for several hours in the night from Friday to Saturday after a terrorist attack on an oil depot, close to the circuit, belonging to the main sponsor of the event. Summary below.
Q1: solid time for Pierre Gasly ranked eighth with half a second ahead of sixteenth. It also goes for Esteban Ocon, thirteenth with a margin of two tenths of a second on the first eliminated who is none other than… Lewis Hamilton, totally adrift ! The seven-time British world champion had not experienced such an early elimination since the 2017 Brazilian Grand Prix, when a track excursion knocked him out in the first part of qualifying. But there it was in pure performance that he was beaten.
Q2: top 10 for the two Normans. Esteban Oconcredited with the last time after his first outing on the track and therefore without a joker, signs the ninth time and goes into Q3 for a tenth of a second. An eventful session too, but for other reasons, to Pierre Gasly, ranked seventh. The Rouennais strongly rapped his flat bottom on his first flying lap, so he then had to deal with a car degraded by significant loss of grip. The session was marked by an impressive crash by Mick Schumacher, evacuated to the hospital. This circuit, the second fastest of the season after Monza, is as spectacular as it is dangerous (see below the camera on board Charles Leclerc).
The single-seaters skim the walls at very high speed (up to 330 km/h), without the slightest clearance. In the event of loss of control, the car is swung from wall to wall like a pinball.
Q3: Explosive Esteban Ocon who sets the fourth provisional time after his first run. But the peloton was then very tight: the Ébroïcien was only two tenths ahead of Pierre Gasly, ninth. The second attempts do not change the hierarchy (much). Only Verstappen moved up to fourth after a failed first run. Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, very offensive, made small mistakes that ruined their times. The Alpine pilot signs the fifth time, that of AlphaTauri the ninth. Pole for Sergio Perez (Red Bull) who managed the feat of getting ahead of the Ferraris. He had never won in a qualifying session, which is therefore corrected at his 215th GP!
The outfit of the Grand Prix in question
This qualifying session took place in the particular context of drivers tormented by an attack on Friday about ten kilometers from the circuit. An oil site of the firm Aramco, title sponsor of this Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia, was targeted by a missile. An attack against the backdrop of war in Yemen. Formula 1, which expands year after year to new destinations, has had to manage a completely new terrorist threat for it. The tension is rising with pilots who met for more than four hours overnight from Friday to Saturday. Formula 1 leaders and team bosses went to meet them in a room completely closed to the outside world.
The drivers finally agreed to take the start of this Grand Prix in Saudi Arabia, the country which pays the highest amount to the Formula 1 promoter for the right to organize a Grand Prix. Did they have to submit to financial imperatives? Only one pilot spoke at the end of this nocturnal meeting: Pierre Gasly, without going into the content of the meeting and the choice of pilots.
It is therefore in a heavy context, with sport in the background, that the second Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in history will be held this Sunday. Three months after the penultimate race of the 2021 season which marked the arrival of Formula 1 in this rich Gulf country. Meanwhile an explosion had seriously injured the legs of Frenchman Philippe Boutron, engaged in the Dakar disputed in Saudi Arabia. The track of an attack is privileged…