She is driving again: With more than a hundred days delay due to the corona pandemic, Formula 1 on Saturday without spectators in Spielberg qualifies for the Austrian Grand Prix this Sunday (3.10 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for Formula 1, at RTL and Sky) brought behind.
Surprisingly, pole position was secured by Valtteri Bottas with a lead of just 12 thousandths of a second – the equivalent of 82 centimeters – on his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton. The two drive through the season in black, the silver arrows have been given a new look – as a sign of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I feel very, great, I lacked these emotions,” said Bottas: “Thanks to the team, we did a great job. We’re in a league of our own. ”Indeed. Red Bull driver Max Verstappen is third, about half a second behind. “We show every year that we are the best team. We keep pushing the boundaries, ”said Hamilton, who has won the world championship for the seventh time this year and can therefore catch up with record champion Michael Schumacher.
Others can only dream of it. Charles Leclerc? 7th place. Sebastian Vettel? Eleventh. A disaster in red. “That is certainly not our aim, but it is no longer possible at the moment,” said Vettel. The thirty-three-year-old will leave the team at the end of the season after Scuderia has made no new offer to him.
Even before qualifying, those responsible at Ferrari admitted construction errors to the racing car with the type designation SF1000. A revised version should therefore be launched at the race in Hungary in two weeks. Until then, there is little more than purpose optimism: “Maybe the race will suit us,” said Vettel: “We should be a little stronger in the long run.” Rain is not predicted.
Not only were both Mercedes and Red Bull on Saturday – Alex Albon was fifth – faster, Lando Norris in McLaren (4th) and Sergio Perez in Racing Point (6th) also pushed ahead of Leclerc. What the new Ferrari reality looks like was shown by a radio message from the Monegasque in the second section of the qualification when he made sure that there was enough time for the finals of the top ten. She did – at least for him.
Before the start of the race on Sunday, the drivers want to set an example against racism and wear T-shirts with the words “End Racism”, the BBC reports. However, there was no agreement among the drivers about getting on one knee as a sign of protest. This is the result of an online meeting of the drivers’ union GPDA.
“All 20 drivers are united with their teams against racism and prejudice, at the same time welcome the principles of diversity, equality and inclusion and support the commitment of Formula 1,” said the GPDA. With the “We Race As One” campaign, Formula 1 is currently expressing its solidarity with the worldwide protests against racism and for more equality.
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