What the teams said - Sprint Qualifying in Belgium

McLaren

Piastri was comfortably fastest in the only practice session, so went into Sprint Qualifying as favourite. After going quickest again in SQ1, he gave the team a big scare in SQ2 when he lost his first lap time to track limits. Playing it safe on his second lap, he just scraped through in P10. Norris was a few tenths off his team mate throughout, but topped SQ2 while Piastri struggled to set up the perfect scrap for pole. In the end Piastri was just more comfortable out there than Norris, on pole by nearly half a second. Norris had a messy final out-lap after having to push to avoid towing Verstappen, which ended up costing him a shot at the front row.

Lando Norris, 3rd, 1:41.128

“We’ve got a good starting position for the Sprint tomorrow, however, I would of course like to be a bit further up. We’ve got some things to work on overnight, but it’s only Friday. We’ll do what we can to get the most out of the Sprint tomorrow, as well as Quali tomorrow evening.”

Oscar Piastri, 1st, 1:40.510

“I’m really pleased with that. The pace in the car has been strong all day, and I felt confident going into Sprint Qualifying. I had a little bit of a scare in SQ2, but we put it all together when we needed to, with a lap I was really happy with. We’ll see what we can do in the Sprint tomorrow before we reset for Grand Prix Qualifying.”

Andrea Stella, Team Principal

“It’s been a positive start to our Sprint weekend here in Spa. Oscar secured a deserved Pole position, taking a step from the Medium to Soft tyre in SQ3 with a strong lap that capitalised everything available in the car this afternoon.

“Lando extracted a bit less from the Soft tyres in SQ3. However, it’s good to have him also starting in the top three, where he will be able to fight for a win in the Sprint and valuable championship points.

“We will now turn our focus to tomorrow’s competitive sessions. We are only at the end of Friday, the competition is close, and the weather is also likely to play a role. We have a very interesting weekend ahead.”

Red Bull

Red Bull opted to go with a lower downforce set-up than their papaya rivals, which was paying dividends in the first sector. Verstappen was in the mix all day long, and ultimately grabbed second – splitting the two McLaren cars. With that straight line speed, he will be a danger off the line tomorrow, especially if he gets into the slipstream. Tsunoda could not quite manage to keep up with his team mate, exiting in SQ2 with the gaps at that point in the day very, very tight.

Max Verstappen, 2nd, 1:40.987

“Being P2 between the two McLarens in the Sprint Quali today was a really good result for us. I think we maximised the performance of the car and I enjoyed it out there. The lap itself was good and the gap was big but it has been big since FP1 so that is not a surprise. We just have to focus on ourselves and work on the balance of the car and try to go faster, we need to do our own race. With the upgrades, it is always difficult on a Sprint weekend to say exactly how they have impacted the car, but we keep improving and keep trying to find more performance. Other teams will be doing the same thing and that’s just how it goes."

Yuki Tsunoda, 12th, 1:42.184

“Today has not been the best, during Sprint Quali I was struggling with the drive and missed out by six hundredths of a second, the grid was very tight and I tried my best. Every time that you look back, which as a Team we will do today you can always see what there is to improve on, but it is still frustrating. We expected to bring some new parts to my car this race but unfortunately I have to wait a little longer, but I will continue to try my hardest until they come. We are working well together as an engineering team and with the package that we have in terms of the set up at the moment, but there is definitely a tight sensation with the car right now which means you really have to keep everything together."

Pierre Wache, Technical Director

"Sprint Quali is always a difficult exercise, in the sense that you don’t have so much practice beforehand, only FP1 and you change tyre during the session. Yuki was one tenth behind the cut off unfortunately and he did that on his second lap, making a mistake at T4 and without that he would have been in SQ3. What is impressive is the delta to Pole for Max, which is positive. If we concentrate on our side, the package works well and as expected and now we need to see where we can extract the performance during the race. We changed the rear wing from FP1, to be a little bit complementary to the level of grip we have and we will see what happens on Sunday.”

Ferrari

Mixed fortunes for the Ferrari drivers at Spa. Hamilton – who has been outspoken this weekend about his Championship challenge – was complaining about his car in FP1, which seemed to be riding low and kicking up plenty of sparks with the new rear suspension package in situ. Leclerc seemed the happier of the duo, and he carried that confidence into Sprint Qualifying. Hamilton’s first lap in SQ1 was nothing special, and he found himself in the drop zone. Pushing on his final lap, he locked the rears and spun off and out of the session. Leclerc made it all the way to SQ3, but did not have the pace to challenge the McLarens or Verstappen ahead.

Charles Leclerc, 4th, 1:41.278

"Mixed feelings today, as on the one hand, I am happy that the car feels good on track, which means that we’ve made a good step forward and achieved what we wanted through our upgrades. On the other hand, we are still seven tenths off pole and McLaren seem to be even faster than usual on this track. So it’s P4 for tomorrow’s Sprint, there was not much more to extract today."

Lewis Hamilton, 18th, 1:43.408

"It’s been a challenging day overall, with limited time to properly evaluate the upgrades before qualifying. I was on a strong lap when I suddenly had a big rear lock-up, which caught me off guard. We’re not entirely sure what triggered it, but we’ll go through the data with the team tonight and aim to make the most of what we’ve learned ahead of tomorrow."

Fred Vasseur, Team Principal

"Charles did a solid job today. His lap was strong and we are close to Norris and Verstappen, which shows that we’ve made a step in the right direction and we can be pleased with where we are. Lewis was a bit unlucky on his first lap in which he was faster than Charles but then he came to turns 14-15 and nearly lost the car shortly after Antonelli spun there. On his second attempt he locked the rear and lost control, and in a Sprint Qualifying you pay the price.

"Regarding the upgrades, we only completed a few laps but so far the data we are seeing matches our expectations, which is always positive. Of course, we would have preferred to have both cars starting further ahead, as that helps with data gathering and tyre management, especially in a Sprint weekend. Nobody was able to try any long runs so we will use tomorrow’s race to get a better picture. There’s still a long way to go this weekend and we’ll keep focusing on ourselves to maximise every opportunity."

Haas

Haas felt Silverstone did not give the team a chance to show the potential of their upgrades – but they certainly delivered at Spa. Both drivers made it all the way to SQ3, the first time the American team has had a car in SQ3 this season, let alone two. From there, they worked together with the tow to ensure the best possible grid slots. Ocon lines up a ‘best of the rest’ P5 with Bearman as rear gunner in P7. Haas should be confident of a decent haul of points tomorrow as they set about regaining lost ground in the Championship.

Esteban Ocon, 5th, 1:41.565

“It was awesome out there, I’m really happy. Well done to the whole team, we had two weeks to try and find out what went wrong in Silverstone as the car was difficult to drive, even though the update was in the right direction. Today, we transformed the car and it felt very good. It also feels amazing to have both cars in SQ3 – the first of the year – and we know it’s Sprint Quali so we need to take care and do it again tomorrow.”

Oliver Bearman, 7th, 1:41.857

“We had the choice of using the medium and soft compound, or the hard and soft in practice, so we decided upon the medium as that extra step in compound, it seemed at least for me, would make qualifying preparation quite difficult. I had a very good feeling from practice, I didn’t string a lap together on the softs then, but I knew there was pace in the car. I’m so happy for everyone because it’s such a great team effort to get both cars into SQ3 and Esteban did a great job as well, so it’s a very nice feeling. We brought a new upgrade in Silverstone and we reached Q3 there, and now here it seems like we have good pace again, so let’s keep that up.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal

“After Sunday in Silverstone we needed a reaction, and we knew the car was good, so today is a very good day. We needed to focus in the right way, work together – which is exactly what we did – and I thought preparation was good. We executed FP1 very well, we got exactly what we needed to set the car right for Sprint Quali. It’s been a huge team effort, and a clean Friday. A Sprint weekend is always difficult, especially in Spa, so I’m really proud of how we managed today, and now it’s about converting P5 and P7 into points.”

Williams

Williams have one of the largest upgrade packages here – but their day started badly when Sainz was forced back into the garage in FP1 with a fuel systems issue. That cost him half an hour of vital running, which was far from ideal. But it was his team mate who struggled in SQ1, Albon one of many unluckily caught out by yellow flags late on and thus failing to improve. Sainz made it all the way to the top 10, and starting sixth he’ll be chasing points tomorrow in the Sprint as Williams look to cement their fifth place in the standings.

Alex Albon, 16th, 1:43.212

"We had an issue which we thought we’d fixed after FP1, but we were losing a lot of lap time on the straights in Sprint Qualifying, so we will need to try something different to resolve it. We generally have a good car which seems quick around this circuit, so I’m still optimistic about the weekend."

Carlos Sainz, 6th, 1:41.761

"I’m happy with P6 today. It was a big turnaround from the team and myself after missing half of FP1, so it was good to get some decent laps in during SQ. We also have some updates on the car which I still need to properly understand in order to fine tune the set-up but, overall, when everything goes to plan, we can better show our pace. Hopefully tomorrow we can keep building through the weekend!"

Alpine

Gasly's strong run of form continued in Sprint Qualifying, despite a lacklustre practice session than saw both Alpine cars finish down the order. The Frenchman made it all the way to SQ3 and qualified eighth, although he was called to the stewards afterwards for a moment with Tsunoda – but fortunately for him, no further action was taken. As for Colapinto, he had a messy SQ1 segment, and never really got going. He exited in P19, and thus has it all to do if he wants to impress in the Sprint.

Pierre Gasly, 8th, 1:41.959

“We will definitely take that result today and I am happy with our turnaround on a busy Friday. We struggled a little in Practice so we changed the set-up between the sessions and took some downforce off the car in order to maximise straight line speed. We had to hang on in the middle sector as a result but that is part of the challenge at Spa, finding the right balance. So, I am very pleased with the work we did as a team between the two sessions to turn things around. We squeezed into Q1 – maybe fortunate with the yellow flag for Lewis [Hamilton] at the end of the session – but that is how it goes sometimes. Then it was a really good lap in Q2 to reach Q3 and, in the end, eighth on the grid for the Sprint. We will go for it tomorrow and aim to come away with points.”

Franco Colapinto, 19th, 1:43.587

“We struggled today in general with the balance and the grip and we made a few changes to try and counter that, but with limited Practice running it meant we went into Sprint Qualifying not fully comfortable in the car. We need to go away and focus tonight on trying to understand if we can improve the situation for tomorrow and come back stronger. This is always a tough track where you need to be confident particularly in the high speed, and we knew that coming into the weekend we might need certain conditions to go our way in order to be more competitive. The weather forecast still seems uncertain across the weekend and, at a place like Spa, it's always difficult to predict. So hopefully that plays into our favour and creates some opportunities for tomorrow and on Sunday.”

Racing Bulls

Racing Bulls looked quick in practice despite not running the soft tyres. They carried that form into Sprint Qualifying, even if Lawson’s session started with some sharp use of the brakes when Hulkenberg was released into his path in the pit lane. Both drivers made it to SQ2 but the Kiwi racer could go no further, missing out by 0.041s. Hadjar did make the top 10, and starts ninth – so he needs to get his elbows out at the start if he wants to score his first points since Spain.

Isack Hadjar, 9th, 1:41.971

“It was a good day here in Spa. In SQ3, we had our first attempt on the softs as we didn’t use them this morning. I didn’t really enjoy that lap as I felt more confident on the mediums, and that’s a shame, as I feel like there was definitely more than a P9. Looking at tomorrow, though, I think there’s an opportunity to maybe score points in the Sprint and then it will be important to qualify high in the afternoon for Sunday’s race.”

Liam Lawson, 11th, 1:42.169

“The car has been fast, but we had a small issue in the last chicane. It's the tiny things that make a difference, so this unfortunately knocked us out. Obviously we'll take the learnings from today and try to fix them ahead of tomorrow. Like every other weekend, it's important that we extract every little bit out of the car. Wind changes make quite a big difference here, as it did a few weeks ago at Silverstone, but the key thing is to bring everything together as a team which is what we'll be pushing to do for the rest of the weekend."

Mattia Spini, Chief Race Engineer

“Overall a positive day for us today, we are conscious we didn’t maximise our potential, but it’s still a very good result with P9 and P11. We probably left a bit on the table with Liam, not taking advantage of track evolution in SQ2 and with Isack, we didn’t have a perfect lap in SQ3, but it’s a good starting position tomorrow for the Sprint. We are going to work tonight on the simulator to improve the car whilst we can. The Sunday race looks wet at the moment so we’ll take that into consideration, and we are running a little bit of a higher downforce than our competitors, so hopefully that will play in our favour. All in all, the drivers are happy with the car and we have the potential there, we just need to put it all together to be fast and competitive both tomorrow and Sunday.”

Kick Sauber

Hulkenberg was another to have a difficult opening to Sprint Qualifying. Firstly, he was released into the path of Lawson – which the stewards opted not to investigate. Then his final run in SQ1 was compromised by the timing of his release again, this time coming out into traffic. As such, it was no surprise he exited at the first time of asking. Bortoleto put in a brilliant lap in the closing stages of SQ2 though to make the top 10 shootout for just the second time this season in any format. Lining up P10, he has an outside chance of grabbing a point or two.

Nico Hulkenberg, 17th, 1:43.217

“Sprint qualifying always comes with its own set of challenges – short format, one tyre set, and everything hinging on that first lap. Unfortunately, the initial run didn’t quite come together as planned. On the second attempt, I hit some traffic at the end of the warm-up lap and ended up closely following Liam, which compromised my lap. The tyres didn’t feel optimal at that point either, so overall, it just wasn’t enough. There’s work to do ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying for the race. We made some changes today after practice that moved us in the right direction, but there’s still more potential to unlock from the car. We'll analyse the data and aim to make the most of the Sprint.”

Gabriel Bortoleto, 10th, 1:42.176

"I'm really happy to have made it into SQ3 today: of course, this is Sprint Qualifying, but the feeling of making it through is always good. The car felt solid throughout the session – I feel I could have even squeezed out something more in SQ3. But overall, it was a strong qualifying performance, and getting into the top ten is always encouraging. The car seems strong, so now we will need to see how the race pace holds up tomorrow. If we put everything together, we should be able to fight for those same positions in the next sessions."

Jonathan Wheatley, Team Principal

“Coming out of another competitive qualifying session for the team, in SQ1 Nico found himself up against the clock and a bit too close to the car ahead to capitalise on his second run, ending up in P17. Following a very clean run in SQ1, Gabi progressed through to SQ2, where he delivered a great lap, ending up just half-a-second off Norris. This was the fastest lap ever for a Sauber at Spa-Francorchamps with a 1:41.901. In SQ3, the lap time ultimately just didn’t come to Gabi, and we qualified P10 overall, a great position for the Sprint race tomorrow.”

Mercedes

Mercedes ran a different programme to their rivals in FP1, opting for the hard and medium tyres in practice. They looked quick on those mediums, raising hopes for a strong afternoon. But everything unravelled when Antonelli pushed too hard on his first flying lap, spinning off into the gravel. That damaged his floor and flat-spotted his tyres, and he was never able to recover. While Russell did make SQ2, he could go no further. Having run through the gravel his team mate dragged back onto the track, Russell believed he too had damaged his floor – hence his lack of pace in SQ2.

George Russell, 13th, 1:42.330

"We had good pace in FP1, but I ran through a lot of the gravel thrown up by Kimi’s off in SQ1. In the rest of that segment of Sprint Qualifying, and my lap in SQ2, the car didn’t respond as it was before. We therefore need to pick through the data and look at the car to see if we suffered any damage. Obviously, it is a shock to be knocked out in P13 and not something we were predicting as we headed into the session. I am sure, given the size of the gap to our usual competitors, that there is a reason we will find for this deficit.

"Our attention now turns to tomorrow. We will hopefully be able to show more of the pace that we saw in FP1. Whilst scoring points in the Sprint will be difficult, we know the most important parts of the weekend are still to come with Qualifying and the Grand Prix itself. We will be working hard to put in a performance more representative of ourselves then."

Kimi Antonelli, 20th, 1:45.394

"It was a shame to have our Sprint Qualifying session go the way it did. The car was good in FP1 and in the first half of my first lap in SQ1, it was feeling even better. Unfortunately, I got a little bit greedy on the throttle at turn 14 and had a spin through the gravel. I picked up damage from that and, despite trying my best on my second lap, the performance wasn’t there in the car to do anymore than we saw. It is a shame as we had the potential for a lot more today. It was a mistake from my side but now we will focus on getting the car in a good place for tomorrow’s Qualifying session."

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

"By anyone’s standards, today was a disappointment. We opted to run the Hard compound for the majority of FP1 and, when we switched to the Medium tyre for a short run at the end of the session, both drivers were relatively happy with the car’s performance. Whilst others had taken the Soft tyre, we looked to be within reach of our usual competitors.

"Unfortunately, Kimi’s spin on his first lap of the session caused damage to the floor and diffuser. He got the car back on track and tried a second effort, but the damage was so bad he couldn't set a competitive time. George was running not too far behind Kimi as he spun and suffered some floor damage and gravel rash himself. That was likely a contributing factor in our disappointing performance in SQ2, although we will look to see if there is anything we could have done differently to extract more pace despite that.

"It will be challenging to score any meaningful points in tomorrow’s Sprint so our focus is on ensuring we get the car into a good window for Qualifying and Sunday’s Grand Prix."

Aston Martin

Aston Martin have a new nose and front wing assembly here, which they tested out on Alonso’s car in practice. They looked quick too, but come Sprint Qualifying everything just went away from them after making SQ2. Alonso exited in P14, Stroll one place further back. But the suspicion is that the team’s race pace is better than that suggests. Whether they can move towards the top 10 remains to be seen, but at least they’ll have a chance to further assess those new upgrades tomorrow.

Fernando Alonso, 14th, 1:42.453

"It is always nice to come back to such an iconic track. The weather stayed dry, and SQ1 turned out to be our strongest session. We were right on the limit, and I gave it everything I had. Unfortunately, we couldn't carry that pace into SQ2.

"We were able to test the new front wing, which gave us more downforce. We will continue to keep learning from this new configuration in tomorrow's Sprint race and across the rest of the weekend."

Lance Stroll, 15th, 1:42.832

"It's great being back in Belgium, I always enjoy it here. Spa is just one of those tracks that is really special to come back to every year – it's got those high-speed, fast corners where you really feel the car come alive so I’m looking forward to the weekend.

"We managed to get a clean lap in SQ1, SQ2 was a bit more challenging – I had a couple of snaps and also picked up some damage to the floor, so starting the Sprint Race tomorrow from P15. We'll see what we can do."

Pirelli

Simone Berra, Chief Engineer

“With today’s conditions in FP1, namely track temperatures of between 30 and 35 °C, the C1 performed better than expected, especially on those cars able to develop a high level of aero downforce, making the tyres work well with little sliding.

“The gap to the Medium is obviously very big given that we decided not to bring three consecutive compounds, skipping from the C1 as Hard to the C3 as Medium. In SQ3 we saw a difference of around four tenths between the C3 and C4, close to our simulations prior to the event. Actually, the pole time was much quicker than our simulations which are based on the average of those we receive from the teams. It was about a second faster and it is only Friday!

“The fact that four drivers still have two sets of Hards each could mean that some of them might use one tomorrow in the Sprint, given that the regulations state they must all have one set, as well as a set of Mediums for Sunday’s race. The only hour of free practice on the timetable saw all the teams, with the exception of Haas and Sauber bring updates to Spa. This meant there was very little time for the teams to look at tyre performance over a long run. We will know more tomorrow after the Sprint, where it’s quite possible that all three compounds will put in an appearance. Perhaps those who have nothing to lose because they are starting from the back of the grid, might use the 15 laps to check the behaviour of the compounds other than the Medium, which is the most obvious choice for the short race, with a view to Sunday’s Grand Prix. Unless the weather throws all the plans out of the window!”