The Victors

Sainz blew through two sectors where a yellow was posted without slowing and has been hammered with a 5 grid penalty and a 2 points. This was actually meaningful as Williams dumped a ton of weight and actually looked to compete with the best of the rest tomorrow. Sainz claimed he viewed the two consecutive sectors under yellow as a whole and slowed for the corners at the end of the second sector, but the FIA called BS and said he never laid up at all.

George had pole with the 2 fastest times in Q3 and a smoking 8 tenths gap to Charles LeClerc with Piastri in third and Hadjar returned with an impressive 4th. Norris, Hamilton and Gasly were 5-7 and max was 8. Could be a tough course to take down George with the Mercedes looking fast on that circuit and George handling the corners extremely well. Kimi barely caught a wall on a sharp curve and blew out a tire and broke the suspension at the end of Q2. But he still qualified for Q3, so he will get the 10th spot and could factor in the race. Max looked decent but struggled in Q3 and only finished 8th. There was a strong win that was impacting the qualifier at times and there were a couple of yellows in Q3 that may have had some impact unless you ignored them like Sainz.