6
Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas took top honours this afternoon and secured pole position for tomorrow's race in Austin, with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel joining him on the front row, missing out on pole by only one-hundredth of a second.
Charles Leclerc managed to take part in the first part of qualifying after the team worked hard to replace the engine after a failure took the Monegasque driver out of FP3.
A number of drivers suffered in Q1, as Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat ran wide at turn 9, also Vettel suffering a major lockup going into the first corner, while McLaren's Lando Norris went fastest in a quickly improving track in Q1.
Mercedes and Ferrari set their flying laps on the Pirelli Medium tyre, while Hamilton set the early pace in Q2, with only a tenth and a half separating Hamilton in first to Vettel in fourth.
Positions three and four will be occupied by Max Verstappen and Leclerc with a disappointed Lewis Hamilton and Alex Albon taking their places on the grid just behind in fifth and sixth.
Albon and Verstappen showed the worth of the Red Bull RB15 around the circuit as Albon went fastest while Verstappen split the Mercedes for third.
Both Ferrari's of Leclerc and Vettel topped the times in Q2 as the chequered flag fell, while Daniel Ricciardo was the only Renault to make it into the third and final part of qualifying.
An incident at turn 19 between Hamilton, Verstappen and Daniil Kvyat almost ended in contact between Verstappen and Hamilton, but all three got away unscathed and no investigations were deemed necessary by the stewards.
Bottas set the pace early on in Q3, breaking the track record and setting a time of 1:32.029, beating teammate Hamilton's record time from last year by two tenths.
Nobody could manage to challenge Bottas' time as the Finn was set on course to take his first pole position in Austin, while Albon has his second time deleted for exceeding track limits coming through turn 19.
Seventh and eighth for tomorrow's starting grid will be the McLaren duo of Carlos Sainz and Norris while Ricciardo and Pierre Gasly will start tomorrow's grand prix in ninth and tenth.
Circuit of the Americas - 02 November 2019
Grand Prix of Belgium
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
It is a good question, and as far as I've looked into it, I think it's mostly down to "cosmetics". They think it looks cooler, more modern.
There could be a benefit to cooling of brakes, since the extra space will allow for better ventilation, but it will also require a large revamp of the susp... [Read more]