Turkish Grand Prix Qualifying: Stroll SHOCKS The Grid

The Turkish Grand Prix was set ablazed by the young Canadian Lance Stroll with Checo’s P3 all but locking up the front row to the Pink Merc… Racing Point Team.

In a weekend that had already delivered as much excitement as we’ve seen all year in terms of variation in racing, Saturday was a dream come true to anyone looking for a nice changed from normalcy with no return at Instanbul Park in site. Sergio Perez would pop to the top of the qualifying shoots in a final shoot out full of times that ranged all over the place. Stroll would eventually overcome him with a near perfect lap on a track that was slowly but surely improving.

Stroll’s incredible pole earning lap puts an end to an 8,420 day long streak since a Canadian has started from pole in Formula 1. Ironically that Grand Prix weekend more than 20 years ago was one of the most controversial in the history of the sport – starting with a 3 way tie for pole:⁣
1. Villenueve: 1:21.072⁣
2. Schumacher: 1:21.072⁣
3. Frentzen: 1:21.072⁣
⁣
The drama was just beginning as that season finale would see the FIA hand Schumacher one of the most aggressive single driver punishments ever in Formula 1 as he’d be disqualified completely from the entire year after yet another title deciding run in at the hands Schumi’s wheel.⁣ His 78 points would have been short of his 3rd title in 4 years regardless. As fate would have it, the contact he was deemed to have purposely induced caused him to retire but Villenueve would recover for a podium and his only title.

The main driver between why a car struggled and didn’t seemed to be the tyres. The intermediates were the right call as it turned out atleast for the pink cars. Getting the tyres in the correct working range is no easy task and one Verstappen debated the team openly about as he was more comfortable on the full wets with the team wanting a swap to Inters – surely reacting to Racing Point. Racing Point principal gave credit to Stroll for the call and the team trusted him to deliver:

The main driver between why a car struggled and didn’t seemed to be the tyres. The intermediates were the right call as it turned out atleast for the pink cars. Getting the tyres in the correct working range is no easy task and one Verstappen debated the team openly about as he was more comfortable on the full wets with the team wanting a swap to Inters – surely reacting to Racing Point. Racing Point principal gave credit to Stroll for the call and the team trusted him to deliver:

Verstappen would fail to get the tyres up to temps and even by the time he did, he ran square into traffic that was Kimi Raikkonen. After Verstappen had lead literally every single session leading up to this point combined with the fact that Hamilton and Bottas couldn’t get the tyres to temps, it truly was a let down. He would be visibly upset after the session was over. 

Mercedes are going to have find a solution for their lack of pace and struggle with the tyres. This gave me flashes of some of the issues we saw with the W08 and the notorious diva she was especially on the working range.

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The Constructors champions would be quick enough for 6th (Hamilton) and 9th (Bottas). Split between them woudl be Ocon and Rakkonen with Giovinazzi filling out the last points starting spot making it an Alfa double Q3 entry. Ferrari and McLaren would conversely see a double Q2 elimination which hasn’t happened all season.

GRID PENALTIES

Below are the following penalties applied to the grid and their punishments:

• Russell – 5 place grid drop & 3 points for failing to adequately slow for double yellow.
• Norris –  5 place grid drop & 3 points for failing to adequately slow for double yellow.
• Sainz – 3 place grid drop &  1 point for impeding Perez.

Lance Stroll avoided his own penalty after much deliberation under interesting circumstances. I’ve posted a thread about this on twitter explaining the difference between the punishment Norris got and why Stroll got off with without reprimand which I’ll include here below.

Turkish Grand Prix Outlook

If there’s rain, buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy race. If the track carries any precipitation, I expect Verstappen to all but walk away with this race. And given it’s an 80% chance with Mercedes struggling for temps, my Turkish Grand Prix Predictions will reflect a Red Bull leaning front – with Albon just off the podium as the Thai driver has not shown pace in the wet. We’re getting to the crunch time of contracts and some drivers need to earn their keep. I expect some hard driving from Kvyat, Albon, Perez – the latter out of spite/principle.

For all the news and updates for the 14th round at Istanbul Park, check out the Cranky Yankee Motorsport News Hub for all your Formula 1 coverage and follow along with the F1 Live data platform covering sector by sector racing for every single session all season long.