F1 Brazil GP: Kevin Magnussen secures maiden pole
11th November 2022Haas F1’s Kevin Magnussen secured his maiden pole position, for the Sprint Race, as the Danish driver secured the best time before the rain rolled in.
Q1
As the session got underway, to set the grid for the Sprint Race on Saturday, plenty of drivers sat at the pit exit with the Haas duo of Magnussen and Mick Schumacher at the head of the pack.
Due to rain falling before the session, all of the drivers ventured out onto the Brazilian circuit, Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, with the green-walled, Intermediate tyres.
Naturally, Magnussen set the inital lap time on the board but this was soon beaten by the heavy hitters of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc put in the fastest lap, a 1:19.191.
However, the Monegaque’s time was soon beaten by the likes of both Red Bull drivers, Max Verstappen (P2) and Sergio Perez (P3), and Alpine’s Fernando Alonso – who went to the top of the timing board with 1:18.412.
With eight minutes left on the clock, Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly was the first driver to veer into the pit lane to swap over his inters for the red-walled soft compound tyres. Although the Frenchman had the faster set of tyres on, the Alpha Tauri driver wasn’t able to improve his lap time at the first time of asking.
On the following lap, Gasly went to the top of the timing board with the fastest lap time. As a result, it spurred on a flurry of action in the pit lane as drivers pitted for the soft tyres.
At the same time, there was drama at the Ferrari garage as the mechanics held Leclerc up on jacks while they decided on which soft tyres to put onto the F1-75.
Despite being stuck in the bottom five, after being briefly impeded by Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, the Monegasque was able to get out of the elimination zone before the chequered flag was waved.
Eliminated:
20. Mick Schumacher, Haas
19. Yuki Tsunoda, Alpha Tauri
18. Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo
17. Guanyu Zhou, Alfa Romeo
16. Nicholas Latifi, Williams
Q2
In a similar instance to Q1, a queue had formed ahead of the pit exit light changing to green. Unlike Q1, it was Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel who headed the field out onto the circuit. Race control also activated the DRS zones as the circuit was deemed dry.
After the first set of runs, McLaren’s Lando Norris topped the timing board with a 1:11.571 but this was soon beaten by the likes of Alpine’s Fernando Alonso, then by Verstappen.
With seven seconds left to go, Verstappen, Alonso and Leclerc occupied the top three positions – P1, P2 and P3 respectively. At the other side of the table, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Russell occupied P15, P14 and P13 respectively.
In the dying moments, many drivers started to complain of drizzle on their visors as Sainz reported it was ‘raining alot.’
Eliminated:
15. Lance Stroll, Aston Martin
14. Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren
13. Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin
12. Pierre Gasly, Alpha Tauri
11. Alexander Albon, Williams
Q3
As the weather looked to rain again, the field bunched up at the pit exit awaiting the pit exit light to change into a green light. While most of the field peeled out onto the circuit on the soft tyres, Leclerc was the only driver to peel out onto the circuit with the intermediate tyres.
However, the red flag was brought out as Russell was found in the gravel trap at turn four. The Briton lost control of his W13 down into the braking zone of turn four and skipped across the gravel. Russell managed to get his car out of the gravel but as the Mercedes driver put his foot down on the accelerator, the back end of the W13 spun out and beached itself in the trap.
As the weather began to worsen, Magnussen sat on provisional pole.
When the session got back underway, Perez was the first driver to peel out onto the circuit fitted with the intermediate tyres. While Perez immediately pitted, on his out lap, Hamilton soon followed suit and tested the conditions with a set of intermediates.
However, it was clear no one was going to improve their lap times.
Top 10:
10. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
9. Sergio Perez, Red Bull
8. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
7. Fernando Alonso, Alpine
6. Esteban Ocon, Alpine
5. Carlos Sainz, Ferrari
4. Lando Norris, McLaren
3. George Russell, Mercedes
2. Max Verstappen, Red Bull
1. Kevin Magnussen, Haas
That’s it for the article; F1 Brazil GP: Kevin Magnussen secures maiden pole! What a fantastic lap from the Dane, will Magnussen convert the Sprint Race pole into the Grand Prix pole position? Let us know in the comments!
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- Perez wags finger at home crowd amongst boos
- Mexico GP: Verstappen secures record-breaking victory
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