Veteran Fernando Alonso locked up going into Turn 3 and collided with the wall to bring out a red flag towards the end of SQ1. He crashed with less than two minutes left in the first round of Sprint Qualification and finished in 14th place, sending him to SQ2 even after the crash. 

The red flag was long and made teams scramble to figure out how to get the most out of the minimal track time left after the red flag was lifted. With just nine seconds left in SQ1 drivers raced to the line to start their last lap in hopes to make it through to the second round.

In the scramble only two drivers, Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll, made it and set their last lap of the round. Unfortunately for the home hero the final push lap was not enough to send him over the line faster than Ollie Bearman and secure his SQ2 appearance. 

Both Alexander Albon and Liam Lawson did not set any lap times in SQ1 after their eventful FP1 earlier in the day. The VCARB 03 and FW48 were not ready in time for qualifying, mechanics working hard to repair the cars before the Sprint Race tomorrow.

The Cadillac pair, Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, were both left in SQ1 alongside Pierre Gasly, Lance Stroll, and of course Liam Lawson and Alexander Albon. 

Russell started showing confident signs by topping the charts in SQ2, Antonelli not too far behind following Lewis Hamilton. 

Drivers that did not make SQ3 include the two Audi drivers, Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto, Franco Colapinto, Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman to make up the Haas pair, and Fernando Alonso who didn’t set a time in the second round due to his earlier crash. 

Russell had the fastest time of 1.12.965 followed by his teammate Antonelli who trailed an insanely close 0.68 seconds behind him. In third came current World Drivers Champion Lando Norris who was also just barely faster than his teammate. Oscar Piastri came up 0.19 seconds short and took fourth to solidify the all McLaren second row.

Continuing with the team pair memo came Lewis Hamilton in fifth and Charles Leclerc in sixth, blocking the third row out for Ferrari. Behind them is Max Verstappen in seventh and Isack Hadjar in eighth to solidify the fourth row for RedBull. 

To finish out the top ten came VCARB’s Arvid Lindblad starting in ninth place and William’s Carlos Sainz to start tenth after two close calls in the earlier rounds of Sprint Qualifying.