Q2 – Verstappen moves to the front while Alonso is out
Going into Q2, Stroll was quick to get going and had a banked lap on the board, but his 1m13.630s effort was quickly overtaken by a flock of Q1 leaders – Verstappen leading 1m11.653s ahead of Norris, Sainz, Piastri , Locklear and Russell.
Gasly kept Alpine firmly in the top 10 in seventh, followed by Perez, Hülkenberg and teammate Ocon, while multiple world champion Alonso and Hamilton – the latter of whom complained that “that tire was bad” – only managed 12th and 13th, joining To Bottas. And Zhou and Picnic in the landing zone.
Stroll again ran out of sequence with his second timed run, working his way back into the Division Three positions at UConn’s expense, but was bumped again as the rest of the field completed their final efforts and took the checkered flag.
While Verstappen, Norris, Sainz and Leclerc remained in the pits, Hamilton put himself out of danger again by moving up to second place behind his 2021 title rival, while Russell made the two Mercedes cars into the top three.
Perez, Gasly and Ocon all performed well when it was important to be behind the McLaren and Ferrari drivers, with Alonso missing out on third place to his home fans by an agonizing 0.019 seconds – Bottas, Hülkenberg, team-mate Stroll and Cho being the best. Others excluded.
Out of the race: Alonso, Bottas, Hulkenberg, Stroll, Cho
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