It was a huge statement from Valtteri Bottas, who took pole position by a mere seven thousandths of a second over his team-mate Lewis Hamilton. They both set their laptimes in the first set of runs, it seemed the track was not as good towards the end of the session. Neither could improve their lap.
Max Verstappen’s first lap was good enough for pole but it got deleted after a mistake at Turn 4, and he ended 3 tenths off pole position due to the track apparently not being as in range. His team-mate Sergio Perez qualifies in fourth, meaning its an all Mercedes/Red Bull top 4.
Carlos Sainz qualified in fifth ahead of a great showing from Esteban Ocon to qualify in sixth. Lando Norris ended the session seventh ahead of Charles Leclerc in eighth, Pierre Gasly in ninth and Sebastian Vettel in tenth, the latter making it to Q3 for the first time since last year’s British Grand Prix.
George Russell came agonisingly close to making it into Q3, qualifying in eleventh place, half a tenth off of Q3. Antonio Giovinazzi had a good session to qualify in twelfth ahead of Fernando Alonso in thirteenth, Yuki Tsunoda in fourteenth and Kimi Raikkonen in fifteenth.
The big shock of Q1 was Daniel Ricciardo failing to make it past the first part of qualifying, he will start in sixteenth after a scrappy final lap ahead of a disappointed Lance Stroll. Nicholas Latifi qualified in eighteenth with the two Haas cars of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin rounding out the grid.
Here is the result of qualifying from Portimao
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