Formula 1 70th Anniversary Grand Prix: Qualifying Recap

Event: Qualifying for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix – Saturday August 8
Location: Silverstone Circuit, England
Layout: 5.891-kilometer (3.66-mile), 18-turn circuit
Weather: Mainly Sunny
Air Temps: 26 degrees Celsius (78.8 degrees Fahrenheit)
Track Temps: 44 degrees Celsius (111.2 degrees Fahrenheit)
Pole Winner: Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes (1:25.154) 
Result:    Romain Grosjean qualified 14th / Kevin Magnussen qualified 17th 
Notes: Grosjean to start 13th after Ocon (11th) penalized three-spots

Free Practice No. 3 Rundown

Event: Qualifying for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix – Saturday August 8
Location: Silverstone Circuit, England
Layout: 5.891-kilometer (3.66-mile), 18-turn circuit
Weather: Mainly Sunny
Air Temps: 26 degrees Celsius (78.8 degrees Fahrenheit)
Track Temps: 44 degrees Celsius (111.2 degrees Fahrenheit)
Pole Winner: Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes (1:25.154) 
Result: Romain Grosjean qualified 14th / Kevin Magnussen qualified 17th 
Notes: Grosjean to start 13th after Ocon (11th) penalized three-spots

Free Practice No. 3 Rundown

Grosjean:    15th overall (1:28.076), 15 laps completed
Magnussen:    20th overall (1:28.763) 16 laps completed
Fastest:     Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes (1:26.621)

Q1 Rundown: 

18-minute session with all 20 drivers – Top 15 advance to Q2

Grosjean:    13th overall (1:27.519), Advances to Q2
Magnussen:    17th overall (1:28.236)
Fastest:     Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes (1:26.738) 

Q2 Rundown: 

15-minute session featuring the Top 15 from Q1 – Top 10 advance to Q3

Grosjean:    14th overall (1:27.254)
Fastest:     Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes (1:25.875) 

Q3 Rundown: 

12-minute session featuring the Top 10 from Q2

Pole Winner:     Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes (1:25.154)
Second:    Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes (1:25.217)

 

Recap

Haas F1 Team drivers Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen qualified 14th and 17th, respectively, for Sunday’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, the fifth round of the 2020 FIA Formula One World Championship at Silverstone Circuit. Grosjean will start the 52-lap race from 13th after Esteban Ocon (Renault), who qualified 11th, was hit with a three-place grid penalty by the stewards for impeding George Russell (Williams) in Q1 qualifying.

Grosjean and Magnussen both started Q1 on a set of the Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires before switching over and utilizing two sets of the Red soft rubber for two additional timed runs. Grosjean’s first attempt on the softs netted a 1:28.118 which he then bettered on his final outing with a 1:27.519 – good for 13th overall and a spot in the Q2 shootout. Magnussen banked a 1:28.587 first run on the softs – improving to a 1:28.236 on his second set of rubber for 17th at the checkered.

Q2 saw Grosjean run exclusively on the medium compound. The Frenchman posted an opening lap of 1:28.750 which he then eclipsed with a final charge of 1:27.254 to claim 14th overall with only the top-10 in the session progressing to Q3.

Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes claimed the top spot in qualifying for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, the second pole position of the season for the Finnish driver and his 13th career Formula One pole. His Q3 fast lap of 1:25.154 beat his teammate and second-place qualifier Lewis Hamilton by .063 of a second.

 

Romain Grosjean, Driver No. 8, Haas F1 Team

“Nobody was unhappy about getting into Q2. Obviously, that’s our target in qualifying, short-term. Mid-term we’ve got to be seeing both cars in there. We don’t have any updates coming so we just need to optimize the package that we have. That’s something we’ve done very well on my car since last weekend, I feel like we’ve improved a lot. 

The feeling in the car has come to me in a much better way. I’m obviously very happy with that, but we’ve got a lot more work to do. With our tire choices and so on, we’ve prioritized the race, so we should be okay.” 

 

Kevin Magnussen, Driver No. 20, Haas F1 Team

“It wasn’t quite enough all together this weekend. It’s been a terrible weekend for me so far. I don’t know what’s going on with the car – it’s just been way off what I was able to achieve last week and how it felt then as well. It’s very surprising and it’s very frustrating to suddenly be in this situation where the car isn’t delivering what we know it can. We have to try and get to the bottom of that. It’s lost a lot of stability and I’ve been getting a lot of surprising snaps, I’ve got no confidence in the car compared to last week when I was really able to lean on it – especially through the high-speed stuff, of which there’s a lot here. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.” 

 

Guenther Steiner, Team Principal, Haas F1 Team

“I’m actually pretty happy with our starting positions – starting 13th, it’s a pretty good place and we know we’ve got a decent race pace. We’re really looking forward to going racing tomorrow with Romain (Grosjean) as there could be points out there to get. He did a fantastic job today to put those laps in, I take my hat off to him for that. Kevin (Magnussen) has just struggled with the car all weekend, he hasn’t been comfortable and is lacking grip in every situation. We will look into this, to see what it is, and see if we can fix it. Hopefully we’ll get it fixed for the next race in Spain.”