How far can Hamilton charge from 11th? 2021 Turkish GP qualifying report

The Turkish Grand Prix could not be more beautifully poised. Lewis Hamilton topped both Friday practice sessions and every session of qualifying at Istanbul Park as Mercedes looked stronger relative to the opposition than it has all year. But this is 2021 and so it can’t be that simple. As Max Verstappen did at Sochi, Hamilton has taken a fourth ICE (internal combustion engine) and will start 11th on tomorrow’s grid as things stand.

That means an opportunity for Verstappen to wipe out the two-point deficit at the head of the drivers’ championship and re-take the lead. Normally, you’d have no doubts, but the weekend has thus far proved a trickier one for Red Bull.

As soon as the cars went out on Friday morning it was as if they were on a different track to the gripless surface they encountered last year when, to a man, drivers reported that it was like driving on ice.

“FP1 today, was over 10sec faster than last year and it’s actually become one of the grippiest tracks on the calendar!” Valtteri Bottas said on Friday. The surface had been water-blasted in the lead-up to the event, increasing the abrasiveness and Pirelli, which had come with its C2/C3/C4 compounds, a step softer than in 2020, admitted that its selection was too aggressive.

Verstappen found he was suffering understeer on corner entry and then snaps of oversteer mid-corner to exit. He was half a second adrift of Hamilton in the first practice session and even further off in FP2, when he could only manage fifth and was actually five-hundredths adrift of team-mate Sergio Perez.

The teams knew that the surface would be grippier, of course, but not the extent, which was guesswork as far as the pre-race simulations were concerned. Both Perez and Pierre Gasly also complained of understeer, which made you wonder whether the surface change had impacted more heavily on the simulations / preparations of those running high-rake cars.

Of course, such is the depth of resource available to teams, that once they know what the situation is, it’s relatively straightforward, if labour intensive, to recalibrate and come back the following day for another go.

The qualifying time sheet had a much more familiar ring to it. Hamilton topped Q3 by 0.13sec from team mate Bottas, who therefore takes his first pole since round three in Portugal, and must have his best chance of avoiding a winless 2021 season – which would be his second at Mercedes after 2018 – provided his team-mate doesn’t make it through into second place.

But that is predicated on Valtteri making a decent getaway and repelling the opening lap advances of Verstappen. What chances of that?

“I expect it to be hard to fight [the Mercedes],” Max admitted. “It’s been tricky, but we turned it around from yesterday and we need to see what the weather does tomorrow.”

Quite. Although the forecast says that a dry race is ‘probable’, if it IS wet, all bets are off and you wouldn’t give a fig for Bottas’s chances. Even in the dry, Max finally qualified within two tenths of him and expects to be closer than that in race trim. Max’s big concern is the lack of grip off P2 on the grid which, he feels, could give him problems maintaining his start position, let alone setting about Bottas.

Irrespective of whether Verstappen is on course for 25 points or 18 at the front, Hamilton still faces a lot of jeopardy in his damage limitation exercise and Lewis knows he needs to be careful in the middle of the pack.

Immediately ahead of him, as Honda managed to get all four of their power units into Q3, is Yuki Tsunoda. The Japanese rookie will be under strict instructions from Dr Marko keep the No44 Mercedes behind.

Next in line is Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin, last year’s pole winner lining up ninth, one place behind Lando Norris. After the excitement of the last two races, this was a disappointing session for Zak Brown’s men, doubly so when Monza winner Daniel Ricciardo failed to make it out of Q1!

The soft compound Pirelli, which grained badly early doors, was not a good tyre for anyone, but particularly problematic on the McLarens.