Chinese Grand Prix: Sprint Qualifying Recap

SQ1 proved to be a tale of mixed fortunes for Bearman and Ocon – with Bearman progressing into SQ2 courtesy of a flying second lap on the mandatory Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tire. The British rookie clocked a 1:32.269 to advance in his VF-25. Ocon’s first charging lap was a 1:33.774, which he bettered on his second run – a 1:32.651, but it wasn’t quick enough to see the Frenchman graduate out of SQ1.

Bearman opted for one fast stint in SQ2 – again the medium tire compound mandatory. A 1:31.978 initially had the 19-year-old hovering inside the top 10 but ended up netting out at P12 and just short of progressing into the third and final stage of the afternoon’s session. Sprint pole went to Scuderia Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton at the end of SQ3.

Ahead of Sprint qualifying, Friday’s sole practice session delivered P11 and P13 performances from Bearman and Ocon respectively on the timesheets – both drivers working a run program consisting of medium and soft tire stints as the track rubbered in. Bearman delivered a 1:32.967 on the softs with Ocon banking a 1:33.163 on the same compound.

Ollie Bearman:

“I’m happy with the feeling underneath me today. From the first lap in FP1 I knew it would be a bit of a better weekend than we had in Melbourne. I felt comfortable with the car straight away, which is always a nice start to the weekend – and we managed to show a bit of pace out there today. I was still building up to the track, there’s quite a few long unique corners at this track which are tough to get your head around in such a short time. There’s definitely more time to be found, I think we could have had SQ3 in the car today.”

Esteban Ocon:

“It’s for sure disappointing to be knocked out, but I think there are positives as obviously Ollie got up there and we look to be more in the mix than we were in Melbourne. We’ve definitely found some pace as a team, and that’s very positive. On my side we need to look at what went wrong in this short session. So, we have to dig, but overall – much better than Melbourne.

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:

“As a team, I’m very happy with everyone and how we’ve made progress since coming from Melbourne – which was obviously an incredibly difficult weekend. What I’m really happy about is that everyone’s worked together and tackled problems head on. Today’s FP1 program, across both cars, was very well defined and executed. We are honestly learning every single time we’re going out on track. Ollie did a good job today. He came back from a very difficult weekend in Australia and he hasn’t put a foot wrong today – it was a great effort by him in both SQ1 and SQ2. With Esteban, we have some doubt on his car spec, so we’re investigating that. Again though, his feedback has been really, really good. It’s been a very positive day.”