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Formula 1
Emilia Romagna GP
F1 Emilia Romagna GP Live Commentary and Updates - FP1 & Qualifying
All of Friday's F1 action, including qualifying for the Emilia Romagna GP sprint race
Charles Leclerc leads the early F1 drivers’ world championship by 34 points from Mercedes’ George Russell, following his dominant victory at the Australian GP last time out.
This weekend marks the first F1 sprint race format of the season, which means qualifying is pushed forward to Friday afternoon and the sprint race takes place on Saturday afternoon.
Opening practice for the Emilia Romagna GP gets underway at 12.30pm BST (1.30pm local time), followed by qualifying which starts at 4pm BST (5pm local time).
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I guess we can call this now. This will be the first time since the 2012 Japanese GP with no Mercedes cars in Q3.
Still no cars on the track with six minutes to go in Q2. So, any plans for this evening?
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Lights green
No early takers at the restart of Q2 to leave the track quiet and dampening.
There's still 10m42s of Q2 to go, but given conditions it would be a superhuman effort to improve on the lap times. What is more likely is it will be a mini practice session for Q3 for the top 10.
Rain
The Imola crowd is scrambling for the wet weather gear which gives a big clue that the rain has returned as forecasted. That's bad news for Russell, Schumacher, Hamilton, Zhou and Stroll who are all in the drop zone in Q2.
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Race control says Q2 will resume at 5:50pm local time - so in five minutes.
Crash
Sainz, pushing on his second Q2 timed effort, loses the rear of his Ferrari around the exit of Rivazza 2 and spins into the wall, breaking the front-left corner against the barrier.
That's not a way to celebrate signing a new two-year Ferrari deal, as Sainz's qualifying is over regardless if he makes it into Q3 with his current lap which has him second quickest.
Red flag
Sainz has crashed! That means another red flag!
Stopwatch
Verstappen goes quicker with a 1m18.793s as Leclerc can only manage fifth fastest so far.
Stopwatch
Sainz is quickest so far with a 1m18.990s ahead of Norris and Alonso.
So, 15 lap times coming up. I hope the timing screen can keep up.
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"One timed lap before the rain hits, it will arrive from Turns 2, 3 and 4," Leclerc is told over his Ferrari team radio. That explains why all 15 drivers are out on track already.
Q2 will start in two minutes due to the earlier red flag for Albon's brake explosion.
Leclerc topped Q1 late on, beating Verstappen by 0.499s, with Sainz third fastest and a mega lap from Zhou to take fourth place.
Checkered flag
Both AlphaTauris are out in Q1 with Gasly only 17th, what a disaster for one of the home teams! Out in Q1: P16 Tsunoda, P17 Gasly, P18 Latifi, P19 Ocon, P20 Albon.
Stopwatch
Personal lap time improvements everywhere you look and as it all shakes out Hamilton scrapes into Q2 on the bubble in 15th - just 0.004s faster than Tsunoda in 16th place.
Hamilton's lap is only good enough for 14th, with Russell up to 11th place. Schumacher, Vettel and Latifi are the ones who need to improve to reach Q2.
Ocon is also out in Q1, as he is still in the pits with a minute to go and down in 18th place. So Ocon and Albon definitely out in the first session so far.
The Mercedes pair are currently at risk in Q1, with Russell 15th and Hamilton 16th. They are both on preparation laps but they will need to make this count.
Stopwatch
There's that Ferrari 1-2 again as Leclerc claims top spot with a 1m19.545s, 0.015s quicker than Sainz. The cause of the yellows was a half-spin for Latifi on an out-lap.
Stopwatch
Norris goes quickest with a 1m20.168s as yellow flags appear in sectors 1 and 2.
All of a sudden it is a Ferrari 1-2, well for a short while at least as Verstappen splits the pair, to go behind Sainz but ahead of Leclerc. Elsewhere on the lap Schumacher locks up and runs over the grass.
Stopwatch
A flood of faster times pop up as Norris goes quickest with a 1m21.232s. The times will keep tumbling all the way to the end of the session as the track grip improves.
Stopwatch
Stroll returns to the top with a 1m22.556s. Good start to the session for the team in green.
Stopwatch
All drivers are on the soft tyres now for what it is worth, with Vettel going top with a 1m23.095s.
The race control updates have declared "normal grip conditions" so no more excuses for the drivers out there. Or something like that.
Lights green
A big queue has formed at pit exit for the restart with Ocon at the front of it.
Given the slippery nature of the track after the heavy rain and the grass and gravel that lines the circuit, we had been expecting some red flags but certainly not like that. Anyway, off we go again shortly.
The track is being cleared up by the track marshals and Q1 will restart at 5:17pm local time - so in four minutes.
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The Q1 clock stopped with 12m06s to go with only 10 drivers with a lap time to their name. It is going to be a busy end to the session when it gets going.
That is Albon's qualifying over before it had truly begun as he hadn't set a lap time, so he'll start the sprint race from last place.
It was Latifi who suffered a very similar brake fire during pre-season testing in Bahrain for Williams. The fire has made the tyre and brake explode, but he's able to limp back to the pits under the red flag.
Red flag
Albon's rear-right brake is on fire! That was an issue Williams endured already this season. A lot of debris is on track so there's a red flag.
There we go, Stroll sets a 1m23.419s on the softs to go fastest, over three seconds faster than Hamilton.
Hamilton provides the first timed lap of 1m27.214s - two-tenths of a second quicker than Bottas on the softs. So we are right at the crossover point already, expect the majority to switch to dry tyres as this session progresses.
Add Vettel and Stroll to the dry tyre runners. There is definitely a dry line around the majority of the circuit already.
By: autosport.com
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