Last weekend’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix was the first sprint weekend of the 2022 Formula 1 season, seeing qualifying take place on Friday evening rather than the traditional Saturday.
In a qualifying session affected by rain across all three stages, the red flags were shown on a record five separate occasions – the most ever in a single three stage qualifying session since the format was introduced back in 2006.
However, rather than those responsible for triggering the red flag stoppages having their qualifying ruined by being the cause of a red flag, multiple drivers appeared to benefit from halting the session due to their own mistakes.
Carlos Sainz Jnr’s crash at the second Rivazza in Q2 may have put a stop to his qualifying, but it also effectively ended the entire second segment of the session as the rain began to fall during the subsequent red flag period that followed. With Sainz sitting second in the times when he spun, he effectively guaranteed his progression into Q3 and a starting position for the sprint race of at least tenth, while dooming those outside the top ten at the time to be eliminated.
In Q3, Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc were in the middle of what should have been their first timed laps of the final session when Kevin Magnussen slid off the track at Acque Minerali, causing the session to be stopped. However, Magnussen managed to avoid being beached in the gravel and pulled his car onto an access road at the end of the gravel trap, turning his car around before returning safely to the pits under the red flag. He would eventually rejoin the session and qualify fourth.
Magnussen took fourth in Imola qualifying despite causing a red flagIn the closing minutes of Q3 after another red flag for Valtteri Bottas stopping on circuit with an exhaust problem, Lando Norris spun on his out lap at the same part of Acque Minerali that Magnussen had spun earlier, prompting the fifth and final red flag that effectively ended qualifying. But with Norris…