The qualifying campaign for the season opener in Austria is done! No one might be too surprised that Mercedes have locked out the front row. Instead, the driver who surprised us all was Sebastian Vettel, and not in a good way.
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The 4-times world champion found himself qualifying in a lowly 11th position and was knocked out of Q1 as a result. We all knew that Ferrari was going to be disappointing this season, but quite how disappointing, we found out today.
Sebastian Vettel says he was disappointed with the car but still has hopes for Sunday
In his post-qualification interview, Vettel said, “We have a little bit more in hand, but it looks like the others were running more fuel or more conservative in practice. I wasn’t quite happy with the car, was not so happy with the car. More oversteer in entry than I would have liked.”
However, Vettel doesn’t believe that the race is already a lost cause. He said, “But we’ll see, I think tomorrow it’s a different picture. It’s a long race, obviously, in race trim, we are always better. I think we’ll be there to make up some ground and score some good points.”
Fans weren’t holding high hopes before the season started, and after hearing this, they might not be doing so, anytime soon. Vettel’s teammate, Charles Leclerc also had a disappointing qualifying. Leclerc beat Vettel to survival in Q2 by finishing 10th. He then managed to improve a bit in Q1, and will now be starting the race in 7th position.
It now seems evident that we won’t be having a three-way titles fight this year. Fans of F1 will have to rely on Red Bull to end the Silver Arrows dominance. As for Ferrari, they’ll be hoping to finish among the top 6 tomorrow.
The starting grid for tomorrow’s race goes in this order, 1. Valtteri Bottas, 2.Lewis Hamilton, 3.Max Verstappen, 4.Lando Norris, 5.Alex Albon, 6.Sergio Perez, 7.Charles Leclerc, 8.Carlos Sainz, 9. Lance Stroll, 10, Daniel Ricciardo, 11. Sebastian Vettel, 12. Pierre Gasly, 13. Daniil Kvyat, 14. Esteban Ocon, 15. Romain Grosjean, 16. Kevin Magnussen, 17. George Russell, 18. Antonio Giovinazzi, 19, Kimi Raikkonen, 20, Nicholas Latifi.
