F1 Qualifying Results 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix

F1 Event: Portuguese Grand Prix
Race Track: Portimão Circuit

Valtteri Bottas driving the Mercedes 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix

Weather: dry  18.0°C
Tarmac: dry  38.4°C
Humidity : 42.6%
Wind : 2.9 m/s W
Pressure: 1005.7 bar

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas scored his 17th F1 pole position of his career, during the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix qualifying session today. The Mercedes driver will start from P1 for the first time in Portugal. It was the 128th pole for the Mercedes F1 team.

Q1
After the first stint Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton was on P1 with a 1:18.726 min, but had his time deleted for crossing track limits in turn 1. Valtteri Bottas was on P1 with a 1:19.205 also with the Mercedes. Carlos Sainz had a good lap and was on P2 with the McLaren on 0.104s.

Fernando Alonso looks to be getting up to speed in the Alpine. The Spanish driver was even 4th after the first stint

With 5 minutes to go in Q1 the following drivers had to improve to get into Q2: Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri), George Russell (Williams), Mick Schumacher (Haas), Nicholas Latifi (Williams) and NIkita Mazepin (Haas).

At the end Tsunoda and Russell made it into Q2. McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo and Aston Martin pilot Lance Stroll were the victims who didn't made it instead. It was the first time since Japan 2019 Ricciardo didn't make it into Q2. His McLaren teammate however Lando Norris again showed his qualifying performance in Imola wasn't a coincidence and was second fastest. Vettel will also be happy to finally get into Q2 this year with his new team.

Q2
A lot of teams tried to set their quickest lap time on the medium tyres. Hamilton was very quick on the mediums and clocked the first lap time below 1:18 with a 1:17.968 min. Both Mercedes cars were on P1 and P2 on the mediums, while the Red Bull's had to settle for P5 and P6 on the medium tyres.

With 5 minutes to go the drivers who ended up in to the elimination zone were again Russell and Tsunoda. The three other drivers were Sainz, Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) and Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo).

Leclerc, Perez and Verstappen also set their quickest lap time on the medium tyres and will start on that compound together with both Mercedes drivers tomorrow. Vettel made it into Q3 for the first time in the Aston Martin. It was the first time he accomplished that since the British GP in 2020.

Russell almost made into the Q3. The Williams driver only needed 0.057s to beat AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly for Q3, but had his best qualifying result of his F1 career today.

Q3
The shoot out for pole was very intense as Hamilton was able to set the record to an amazing 100 poles. This mind blowing number even is scored only by 5 F1 teams in history.

After the first stint Bottas was on pole with a 1:18.348. Hamilton was on P2 on only 0.007s and Perez was on P3 on 0.542s. The other pole favourite Verstappen did drive the quickest lap time with a 1:18.2, but his lap time got deleted due to track limits in turn 4.

The second stint Verstappen did make it to P3, but the Dutchman didn't came very close to the Mercedes drivers as was anticipated.

The pole time of last years Portuguese GP was a 1:16.652 min driven by Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes.

✅ Check out our 2021 Portuguese F1 GP preview.

Qualifying Times 2021 Portuguese GP

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