F1 Qualifying Results 2020 Portuguese Grand Prix
F1 Race Event: Portuguese Grand Prix
Race Track: Portimão Circuit
Lewis Hamilton wins his 97th pole position of his F1 career
Weather: dry 20.7°C
Tarmac: dry 35.2°C
Humidity : 48.6%
Wind : 2.4 m/s N
Pressure: 1014.0 bar
Lewis Hamilton scored his 97th F1 pole position in the 2020 Portuguese Grand Prix qualifying session today. It was already his 9th pole of the 2020 season. The Mercedes driver will start from P1 for the first time in his career in Portugal. It was the 123rd pole for the Mercedes team.
Q1
In FP3 a drain cover came loose when Sebastian Vettel drove across it in turn 14. Because loose drain covers caused a lot of damage in the past the stewards decided to check the complete Algarve circuit for loose covers. Due to the checking and fixed of those covers the qualifying session was delayed for half an hour.
On top the usual suspects, Valtteri Bottas, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen battled for P1. With 5 minutes to go the last 5 on the leaderboard were also occupied by the usual suspects; Romain Grosjean (Haas), Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo), George Russell (Williams), Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and Nicholas Latifi (Williams). Until the last second they tried to not be eliminated for Q2. Only Russell improved enough to get into Q2. Which was unfortunate because Alfa Romeo driver Antonio Giovinazzi got knocked out by that improvement.
Q2
Both Mercedes, Ferrari and drivers came out on medium tyres to put a lap time on the board in their first stint. The Mercedes drivers Bottas and Hamilton were quick enough and clocked the first and second fastest lap time. Only Hamilton needed 2 laps to get it right. Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc got P8 on the mediums, while his teammate Sebastian Vettel tried his best but could get higher than P14.
With 6 minutes to go he went in to get the soft tyres, but also had to stop at the stewards for quick check. Esteban Ocon (Renault), Lance Stroll (Racing Point), Daniil Kvyat (AlphaTauri), Vettel and George Russell were candidates to be eliminated to get into Q3. Russell did improve to P14 and pushed down Vettel to P15, who surprisingly also did his second stint on the medium tyres.
Q3
After the first stint Bottas was on pole with a lap time of 1:16.986 min on the soft tyres. His team mate Hamilton was on P2 with a time difference of only 0.047s. Verstappen, who also used the softs was on P3 (+0.121s).
The track got slower because the wind had picked up and both Mercedes drivers strangely got out on medium tyres to try and go faster. Hamilton won pole in the very last second and Leclerc did a very good job by qualifying P4.
Qualifying Times 2020 Portuguese GP
| Pos | No | Driver | Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Laps |
| 1 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:16.828 | 1:16.824 | 1:16.652 | 21 |
| 2 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1:16.945 | 1:16.466 | 1:16.754 | 17 |
| 3 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 1:16.879 | 1:17.038 | 1:16.904 | 23 |
| 4 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1:17.421 | 1:17.367 | 1:17.090 | 23 |
| 5 | 11 | Sergio Pérez | Racing Point | 1:17.370 | 1:17.129 | 1:17.223 | 21 |
| 6 | 23 | Alex Albon | Red Bull | 1:17.435 | 1:17.411 | 1:17.437 | 29 |
| 7 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | McLaren | 1:17.627 | 1:17.183 | 1:17.520 | 24 |
| 8 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 1:17.547 | 1:17.321 | 1:17.525 | 24 |
| 9 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | 1:17.209 | 1:17.367 | 1:17.803 | 26 |
| 10 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Renault | 1:17.621 | 1:17.481 | no time | 17 |
| 11 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Renault | 1:17.775 | 1:17.614 | 18 | |
| 12 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Racing Point | 1:17.667 | 1:17.626 | 22 | |
| 13 | 26 | Daniil Kvyat | AlphaTauri | 1:17.841 | 1:17.728 | 22 | |
| 14 | 63 | George Russell | Williams | 1:17.931 | 1:17.788 | 17 | |
| 15 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1:17.446 | 20 | ||
| 16 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Alfa Romeo | 1:18.201 | 12 | ||
| 17 | 99 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo | 1:18.323 | 12 | ||
| 18 | 8 | Romain Grosjean | Haas | 1:18.364 | 12 | ||
| 19 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | 1:18.508 | 10 | ||
| 20 | 6 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | 1:18.777 | 11 |
✅ Check out more posts with related topics:
whoever checked the track for the FIA should be fired, this is not the first time there has been problems with drain covers lifting,(they should all be screwed down securely!!!! This would only happen to me once,i am surprised that the teams or the drivers did not notice!.
✅ Checkout the latest 50 F1 Fans comments.