2024 US GP Qualifying Preview & Tips – JP
2024 US GP Qualifying Preview
Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2024 US GP Qualifying preview. We were out of in the Sprint Race earlier, fingers crossed we can turn things around.
2024 US GP Qualifying
Well…it’s been a shit show so far and I am not enjoying this US GP sprint weekend format. We now have to switch from a race…to qualifying. It is not a normal process.
We learned a bit about the race pace of the various cars from the sprint race, but now the teams head back to the garage to start from scratch. They are now allowed to change setups based on what they have learned so far. The form from yesterday’s qualifying is likely to change to some degree.
McLaren
Quite poor so far. From being the dominant team a month ago, they look about third best this weekend. Norris has looked nervous all weekend and he managed to turn a great race start into very nearly a disaster at the end of the sprint. Piastri had a reasonable recovery drive but nothing special.
Red Bull
Max enjoyed the clean air out front. No massive pace advantage, but if he can get his nose in front he can win. Over a single lap? If Ferrari still struggle with the softs tyres over a flying lap, he should be right in the mix. Mercedes may be a threat.
Ferrari
There’s a pattern emerging here. The car has great race pace. They will be very competitive on Sunday, but they are not liking the soft tyres, and while they do not have to use them in tonight’s qualifying, you need a soft tyre to get pole.
Mercedes
Good one lap pace, but they ate their rear tyres in the race and looked poor. Another upgrade that flatters to deceive? They should be in the mix for pole, but if they make changes to help with tyre wear, will that cost them one lap pace? The team are blaming the hotter conditions for flopping today, but it is always something.
Haas
Very solid in both qualifying and the race so far. They may get both cars onto Q3 and Magnussen gets the new parts from here on in.
Williams
Frustrating. Albon made changes to his car and started form the pits. His job was just to gather data. Colapinto lost a couple of places on lap one and could not recover them. They will be in the hunt for Q3 places.
Aston Martin
Looking poor this weekend. Lower midfield obscurity beckons for the rest of the weekend.
Visa RB
Tsunoda dropped a place in the sprint, but still managed to beat our bet on Colapinto beating him, by a place. The car remains ordinary.
Alpine
Nothing to suggest much has changed at Alpine.
Sauber
Propping up every list going.
2024 US GP Qualifying Summary
It would seem that the battle for pole should be between Verstappen and maybe the two Mercedes drivers.
The problem is that while Red Bull are likely to just refine what they have got, Mercedes are going to be trying to fix what made their race pace so poor. They can blame the heat, but you can’t engineer the weather.
The car is just too sensitive. If they leave the setup be and hope for cooler weather, they could be on pole, but my guess is that they will try and fix their race pace problems. There are no points for qualifying after all.
Ferrari have a car that is better over a race distance than qualifying and they will probably accept that on what we saw today. Over a race distance, Ferrari look to be the best car. Their job today is to try and get close enough to the front row, to make that pay tomorrow. That is hard to do. The biggest performance enhancer in F1…is being at the front in a race, not in the dirty air of two or three cars ahead.
It would seem that Max Verstappen is the logical choice to be the fastest qualifier. Maybe McLaren can find the magic bullet, but they are chasing things now.
2024 US GP Qualifying Bets
Four points down on the weekend so far is annoying. I don’t like the sprint format and the wise thing to do is to sit this session out and do a good job for the race tomorrow.
However, I will have a stab with Max Verstappen to be fastest qualifier. The odds are better than I expected. Yes, if we had a re-run of last night’s session, I would go for Hamilton, but Mercedes are bound to be looking to fix their race pace, and usually that means sacrificing one lap pace.
Red Bull do not look like they need to do too much between now and qualifying. Just refine what they already have.
