F1 2023 results: Qualifying results from the Spanish Grand Prix

Thomas Maher 03 Jun 2023 3:33 PM

Mercedes Lewis Hamilton on track at the Spanish Grand Prix. F1 Barcelona, June 2023.

The Spanish Grand Prix has been held at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya since 1991.

Here are the complete results from the qualifying session at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has put an imperious performance in Q3 at the Spanish Grand Prix, popping in a 1:12.272 on his first run to end up almost a full second clear of anyone after the first flying laps.

While most of the drivers improved on their second run to close the gap down to ‘just’ half a second, Verstappen had no need to finish his final flying lap and took a comfortable pole position to finish 0.462 clear of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.

Lando Norris put in the third-quickest time to give McLaren a big morale boost after a tough start to 2023, while Pierre Gasly finished in fourth place for Alpine. However, the French driver was demoted six places after two impeding incidents, first getting in the way of Sainz and then Verstappen.

Lewis Hamilton finished fifth for Mercedes, ahead of Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin, and Esteban Ocon’s Alpine. The top 10 was rounded out by Nico Hulkenberg, Fernando Alonso, and Oscar Piastri.

Verstappen had put in the fastest time of the Q2 portion of qualifying, with the Red Bull driver setting a 1:12.760 in what was a comfortable session for the reigning World Champion.

There was less good news for the second Red Bull, with Sergio Perez missing out in P11 after making a mistake on what was due to be his last flying lap. The Mexican ran wide at Turn 5 into the gravel, keeping it out of the barrier as he regrouped for a final push.

But the lap proved insufficient to escape the dropzone, with Perez radioing in his disappointment at the result. Joining him in the dropzone were Mercedes’ George Russell, who had a bizarre incident as he made contact with Lewis Hamilton down the main straight – Russell appearing unaware of his teammate’s presence as he moved to avoid Carlos Sainz coming out of the pits.

Hamilton had set the pace in the first portion of qualifying, with the Mercedes driver putting in a 1:12.9 on the soft tyres to beat Lando Norris by almost four-tenths of a second.

Q1 proved to be quite a tense 18 minutes, due to the threat of rain forcing almost all of the drivers out on track to quickly get the action underway before the conditions worsened.

With less than four minutes gone in Q1, the session was red-flagged due to gravel on track. This was after several drivers had gone off track in the encroaching damp, with Valtteri Bottas, Alex Albon, and Fernando Alonso all finding the gravel – all escaping serious damage from the errors, although Alonso’s floor needed quite a bit of tape in order to head back out on track.

With conditions improving, Ferrari found themselves under pressure as Charles Leclerc complained about the handling of his SF-23 as he remained in the bottom five as the session entered its final minute – the conditions ramping up to the point where the fastest laptime improved almost every time a driver crossed the line.

Hamilton ended up with the quickest time ahead of Norris and George Russell, but Leclerc failed to improve sufficiently to escape the elimination zone. The Monegasque radioed in “unbelievable” as he could only manage the 19th-quickest time and 1.1 seconds off the outright pace.

An incident of blocking between Pierre Gasly and Max Verstappen was noted by the stewards – Gasly having blocked Verstappen through Turn 4 – and will be investigated after the session, as well as a separate incident involving Gasly and Carlos Sainz – the French driver blocking the Ferrari through the high-speed penultimate corner.