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THE ROAD TO
POLE
* Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was fastest in a disrupted qualifying at Imola,
held on Friday afternoon as this is a Sprint weekend, with his pole time set
on the Cinturato Green intermediate tyre. Both the new 18-inch Cinturato
Green and Cinturato Blue wet weather tyres were used today for the first
time during a race weekend.
* Qualifying – which featured at least one red flag in each of the sessions
– was preceded by just one hour-long free practice earlier this afternoon,
which was topped by Ferrari’s championship leader Charles Leclerc, at the
Scuderia’s home race. Leclerc lines up second behind Verstappen for
tomorrow’s Sprint.
* Conditions were cool and wet throughout the day, with qualifying getting
underway in temperatures of 12 degrees ambient and 14 degrees on track. Free
practice was fully wet, with the full wet tyres used at the beginning of the
session, while the rain stopped in time for the start of qualifying – with
some drivers using the P Zero Red soft tyres from Q1 (while others started
on the intermediate). The rain fell again before the start of Q3, which
meant that the top 10 shoot-out was run entirely on the intermediate.
* Verstappen received the Pirelli Pole Position Award – his first this year,
and the 14th of his career – from Formula 1’s Chief Executive Officer,
Stefano Domenicali. Imola is Domenicali’s home town, who was previously team
principal of Ferrari and CEO of Lamborghini before taking on the top job in
Formula 1.
* With today’s action being mostly wet and only one slick compound run, it's
impossible to get a read on the performance gaps between all the tyres.
MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF CAR RACING
“This was the first real test for us of the new 18-inch Cinturato wet and
intermediate tyres, which has never been tried out before in conditions that
were as cold as today, so that was valuable information in the bank for us.
On the whole the wet and intermediates tyres performed well. Some drivers
did comment about warm-up, but that’s to be expected in these low
temperatures. The hardest aspect to today was definitely choosing the right
tyre at the right time between full wet, intermediate, and slicks, so
establishing the crossover point – the right moment to switch between them –
was key to that. In accordance with the rules for a wet Friday, the drivers
now have an extra set of intermediates, and they will have to give one used
set back after FP2. What we’re still missing is data on dry running, so
we’ll see what tomorrow brings: maybe we will know more about that before
the Sprint.” |
