São Paulo Grand Prix: Qualifying Recap

The story of qualifying was the rain showers which dominated overhead. A significant delay to Q1 due to the severity of the rain and track conditions, after just a handful of minutes, resulted in an almost 90-minute wait to get back up and running. When it was deemed safe to continue Bearman and Câmara started to clock laps on the Pirelli Cinturato Blue extreme weather tire.

Câmara survived an early scare after a full 360-degree spin off-track resulted in relatively light contact with a barrier and he was able to return to the garage for a front wing change and a new set of tires on his VF-26. The rookie graduated through into Q2 posting a best lap of 1:32.809 for P13. Bearman followed suit moving into the next session in P15 on a 1:33.030 lap.

While both TGR Haas F1 Team cars started Q2 on the blue extreme tires, with track conditions improving Bearman and Câmara switched to the Green intermediate tire as lap times dropped. Câmara saw his fastest lap deleted but he was on for a better time when caught out by a lock-up at Turn 12 – the resulting barrier impact bringing an early end to the session to recover the Brazilian’s stricken car. Câmara’s fastest lap – 1:31.515 earned P13 on his qualifying debut. Bearman was sat in P8 at the red flag courtesy of a best tour of 1:29.130 – the Briton moving on to Q3 with the top 10 runners.

With just one flying run on the green compound in Q3 due to worsening conditions – a 1:30.534, Bearman placed P8 at the end of qualifying.

McLaren’s Lando Norris captured pole position ahead of the Mercedes pairing of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.

Ollie Bearman:

“It was certainly a crazy session. I learned a lot from my first rodeo here two years ago, and I, as well as the team, did a much better job this time around on the wet tire, when to push and when to cool. We did well, and it’s a shame about Q3 as compared to our competitors, we just struggled to put the tires in the correct window, so I didn’t have any grip, and then it was game over. I’m happy with the job that we did, there’s a bit more out there, but it’s okay, as we’ll get them tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it, getting a bit more rhythm in the rain, and we had good pace last time out in the wet – so hopefully that comes back and we can do our very best tomorrow.”

Rafael Câmara:

“It was a tricky one, but I’m okay. I was just a bit unlucky in the last corner, locking up, and then trying to make the corner, but it was really not possible. In a way, I’m a bit disappointed with the mistakes, as I know for the team, that’s not what they want, but overall I think it was a positive session. I think one thing we do know, we don’t want to crash tomorrow, and we just try to have a clean race, but I think we’ll go into the data, go into procedures with the team tonight and see what we can do best for tomorrow, and prepare for all the scenarios. There’s a lot to do in the race, but we need to get as ready as we can for a good race.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:

“Performance-wise, I think it was a positive day. In FP3, we struggled a bit with the hotter track temperature, and we’ve seen it before, our operating window of our car is not really wide enough. In qualifying, from the get-go, it was very challenging conditions, but operationally, the team did a really good job. To do that, I think we’ve improved quite a lot, if you think about what happened in Malaysia, then we made a good step in Singapore, and here today, I’m really proud of the team. Ollie getting into Q3 is nothing short of what everyone in this team deserves. The last time we did that was in China, and he did a fantastic job. Ollie had these conditions two years ago, and he learned a harsh lesson, but he put every learning into it today and judged everything very well, P8 was a very good result.

“Rafa, as a rookie going into his home race, going straight into qualifying was extremely challenging with lots of standing water in Q1. He aquaplaned and got caught out there, but did a very good job to get out of Q1, that was brilliant. In Q2, he was very fast, maybe too fast, but again, they’re extreme conditions to put a rookie in the car. We’ve got to support him and reset, but today he showed how fast he is. In FP3, Q1, and Q2, until he had that moment, he showed exactly why we signed him for next year. On Sunday I believe both drivers can race really well together.”