F1 Brazil GP Qualifying 2022: Magnussen’s surprise pole!

Danish Kevin Magnussen has achieved the first pole position in the history of the Haas team in Formula 1 and the first both in his career and in his country in the premier class. Kevin made it through a chaotic qualifying, punctuated by intermittent rain from start to finish. Tomorrow he will start from first place in the qualifying race.

Carlos Sainz has marked the fifth place in a session carried out by another ‘blunder’ of Ferrari, in which intermediate tires were mounted on Leclerc’s car when the asphalt was dry. Fernando Alonso has been seventh.

The qualifying session for the 2022 F1 Brazilian GP started on a wet track, forcing the drivers to go out quickly on intermediate tyres. Charles Leclerc took the lead as soon as he went out on the track, with a time of 1:18.723, which Max Verstappen surpassed after a couple of minutes in two tenths. And even Fernando Alonso had the opportunity to get first, with a 1:18.412.

Thanks to the improvement of the track, with eight minutes remaining in Q1, Pierre Gasly took a risk and mounted dry tyres. On their first lap they didn’t work, but on the second they did, and the AlphaTauri rider took the lead, beating Hamilton – the leader up to that point – by four tenths.

After seeing his good performance with dry tires, the rest of the riders copied the strategy. Lap after lap, all the drivers improved: Alonso became the leader twice (he finished third), and even Latifi showed his head in first place, although he ended up being eliminated. In addition to the Canadian, Guanyu Zhou, Valtteri Bottas, Yuki Tsunoda and Mick Schumacher also fell.

Q2: The rain makes it ‘spicy’ at the end

Despite the threat of rain, Q2 started on dry tarmac. In order to take advantage of the conditions, all the drivers quickly left their box. Lando Norris took the lead with a brilliant first lap, with which he stopped the clock at 1:11.571, and led until he beat Fernando Alonso’s time by one tenth. Verstappen, with eight minutes to go, beat them both.

A minute later it started to rain with some intensity, when the Mercedes team had its two cars out of the ‘top 10’ and, therefore, out of Q3. George Russell was in thirteenth position and Lewis Hamilton in fifteenth.

In extremis, the two star cars managed to climb to third and fourth position respectively, just before the intensity of the rain increased. After the improvement in times in the closing stages of the session, Sainz fell to eleventh place, but the Madrid native made amends with a great time with which he placed second.

Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Lance Stroll failed to get into Q3.

Q3: Magnussen surprises with a spin!

As in Q2, all the drivers rushed out onto the circuit with the aim of setting a time before it started to rain heavily. Almost everyone went out on the track with dry tires; the only one who had intermissions was Charles Leclerc, and he was surprised to find out on the radio.

Kevin Magnussen took the lead after his first attempt with a magnificent lap, in which he stopped the clock in 1:11.674, beating Max Verstappen by two tenths and Russell by three. Carlos Sainz had placed fifth and Fernando Alonso seventh. Ferrari’s mistake with Leclerc was resounding, as the Monegasque had to go through the pits and didn’t even set time.

An accident by George Russell with eight minutes to go, as the rain intensified, caused a red flag to bring the session to an end. After the restart, nobody could improve the time of the Danish driver, who tomorrow will start from the first place in the qualifying race, followed by Verstappen and Russell.

Lando Norris will start fourth, with Carlos Sainz in fifth position and Esteban Ocon sixth, followed by Fernando Alonso. Lewis Hamilton, Sergio Pérez and Charles Leclerc will complete the top ten positions in the short qualifying race.

Results Classification F1 GP Brazil 2022

The Formula 1 cars will return to the track on Saturday for the third free practice of the Brazilian GP, ​​which will start at 4:30 p.m. The 24-lap sprint qualifying race will start at 8:30 p.m.