2026 Barcelona-Catalunya GP Qualifying Review
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What happened in the opening minutes and why is George Russell on pole?
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Hello and a very warm welcome to the Late Breaking F1 podcast presented by Sam Sage and me, Ben Hawking, back with a qualifying review. The Barcelona Catalunya, formerly Spanish Grand Prix qualifying review. Um interesting session, Sam. About four tenths separating seven drivers at the top. And ultimately, a Mercedes on pole, but not the one we've been used to seeing recently. George Russell on pole.
Yeah, a lot of things didn't carry through the sessions in ways that we were expecting them to. You know, there was uh a lot of people hagged McLaren as favorites to take the top spot here. It's unusual that we've seen Russell so comfortably in Frank of Antonelli. That's a real kind of departure from previous results in the season so far. LeCleur making a mistake again. We'll get into that as we go. There are some real ups and downs in this session that should be fun to dig into.
Sets us up for a very interesting race tomorrow. I I'm excited for it. Not only because the thought of seeing all twenty two cars going down to turn one at the same time, that's that's just a beautiful thought.
But heavenly for you.
Uh also just tire wear's back. The return of tireware. Uh we're getting talks of two, maybe even three stop races tomorrow. And I think this grid sets us up quite nicely. Let's start out front with George Russell getting that pole position. Um, and maybe the comparison between himself and Antonelli, because Antonelli, for the first time this season, not going to be joining Russell on that front row. Three temps back, only good. enough for P three. Uh we know Antonelli sat out uh FP one as did many other drivers owing to the rules of if you're not a rookie, you need to give up your your FP one spot twice this season. But even with that, George Russell kind of felt the more comfortable throughout the practice sessions, which carried on into into qualifying here.
Yeah, usually missing that FP one as uh for the rookie replacement, which you know, every driver has to do it. It's very normal now. Um, doesn't really impact. And if you are a driver going to give up your seat, you would argue that Catalunya is probably the one racetrack that you think, yeah, I've done this track. I've done thousands of laps around this racetrack. If you're new, it's the regular testing track for Formula One as well. So the driver's pretty much all very comfortable here. So even the likes of Antangelli, who is of obviously still only in his second. Season in Formula One would have felt more comfortable coming into this race, uh, rather than another being replaced. But it does look as though, or it did look as though, a lot of the drivers that gave up their FP one seat to the rookie were on the back foot.
And of course, we're still learning these cars, upgrades have been brought in. Ferrari have brought in a massive upgrade package, especially to their sidebog structure. So it was fascinating to see how that was going to transcend into the Grand Prix and qualifying. Um, and yet it is George Russell who from the get go is the more comfortable and sits at the top of the tower. The thing that shocked me between the two of them. Three tenths between George Russell and Antingelli. Big margin. The gap between Russell and Antingelli is bigger than the gap between Antingelli in third and Piastri in seventh. You know, there is a real step up between the top two, uh Hamilton and Russell, and then the rest of that kind of natural top seven or eight that we're used to seeing.
And I'm really surprised that Russell's been able to take such a big step forward. I thought, yeah, poll is possible. I think I even said it in my pre predictions for the start of the the weekend that I think Russell will grab pole here. I was very much expecting it to be by the margin that Hamilton is behind, rather than uh the three tenths with a with a car in between them. So a shock in that regard.
I've been really impressed with George Russell, which I appreciate.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What happened in the opening minutes and why is George Russell on pole?
0:00–6:43
2
How did George Russell’s performance compare to Antonelli’s and why was the gap surprising?
6:43–29:07
3
How did Ferrari’s upgrades affect their qualifying pace and where did they finish?
29:07–30:56
4
What caused Charles Le Cueur’s crash and what can we learn from the analysis?
30:56–38:36