Huge home joy! Leclerc wins Italian Grand Prix qualifying with Ferrari

On Saturday, Formula 1 had its sixteenth qualifying session of the season. In front of tens of thousands of Ferrari home fans, Charles Leclerc took the best starting position for Sunday’s race.

Even before the third free practice session, news came that Alex Albon would not be able to take part in the weekend due to appendicitis. He was replaced in his monocoque by 2019 Formula 2 and 2021 Formula E champion Nyck de Vries.

Qualifying was also affected by a large number of drivers changing components outside the rules and receiving penalties as a result. You can see a comprehensive list of these pilots in the Twitter post below.

Q1

As always, the first qualifying session is all about the five slowest drivers dropping out of qualifying. With five minutes to go they were Kevin Magnussen, Valtteri Bottas, Lance Stroll, Mick Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel.

Magnussen briefly made it to the safety of twelfth place, but his time was soon erased due to a track limits violation at turn seven. His final attempt was also deleted for the same reasons, finishing qualifying second to last.

Nyck de Vries had a great performance in his first qualifying session in Formula One. Although his best time was deleted due to track limits, he still made it through to the second part of qualifying.

Just two hundredths slower was de Vries’ teammate Nicholas Latifi. He, along with both Haas and Aston Martins, thus said goodbye to qualifying early.

Q2

The Ferrari drivers set the pace in the second part of qualifying. Carlos Sainz set the fastest time on used tyres. Verstappen’s first attempt was almost four tenths slower.

A respectable time once again shone next to de Vries’ name. Although he was in twelfth place, and therefore in the knockout zone, he was only 280 thousandths of a second behind tenth-placed Norris.

Bottas, de Vries, Zhou, Ricciardo and Cunoda. These were the five drivers in the elimination places before the last attempts. It should be noted that Cunoda did not make it through to the second qualifying session.

A great Saturday for de Vries ended on his last attempt before turn four. He locked up his rear wheels under braking and had a lot of work to do to keep his monoposto pointed in the right direction.

This put him 13th in his first qualifying session in F1, but he will move up a few places at the start due to penalties to other drivers.

After a couple of bad races, Daniel Ricciardo’s mood has improved. The Australian driver and his teammate made it through to the third qualifying session, which is very important for the team in the battle with the Alpine stable.

Q3

The battle for pole position was one of the less thrilling this year at Monza. Carlos Sainz and both Red Bull drivers were eliminated from contention for the win in qualifying, so it was just a question of whether Leclerc would make a mistake.

The only one who could threaten the Monegasque was George Russell. But after the first lap, he was almost seven tenths down.

Even the last attempts did not change the de facto change in the starting order. Charles Leclerc improved his time significantly and no other driver managed to beat him. He gained pole position purely by his speed and not thanks to penalties from other drivers.

Starting grid

The order on the starting grid was significantly shuffled by the various penalties mentioned earlier.

Alongside Leclerc, George Russell in his Mercedes would take the front row. Behind them will be Lando Norris’ McLaren ahead of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.

Daniel Ricciardo will be fifth on the grid. Sixth place will go to Pierre Gasly. Fernando Alonso and Nyck de Vries will start from the fourth row. Sergio Pérez rounds out the elite ten behind Kuan-yu Zhou.

11. Nicholas Latifi, 12. Esteban Ocon, 13. Sebastian Vettel, 14. Lance Stroll, 15. Valtteri Bottas, 16. Kevin Magnussen, 17. Mick Schumacher, 18. Carlos Sainz, 19. Lewis Hamilton, 20. Júki Cunoda.

Sources: Formula 1, Twitter