Lando Norris and Yuki Tsunoda will not be able to take part in Q3 during tomorrow’s sprint race qualifying session due to a quirk of Formula 1’s new rules.
The regulations, which were approved by the FIA’s World Motorsport Council just four days before they were due to be used for the first time, place strict limits on what type of tyres drivers may use during each stage of sprint race qualifying.
In the final phase of qualifying for the sprint race, referred to in the regulations as SQ3, drivers are only allowed to use a new set of soft tyres. The rules specifically forbid the use of tyres which have already been run – article 30.5 (iv) states: “In the period SQ3 of the sprint shootout, up to one set of dry-weather tyres may be used, and this must only be a new set of the soft specification.”
Norris and Tsunoda used their entire allocation of soft tyres during Friday’s two sessions and both drivers reached Q3, taking seventh and eighth on the grid respectively. But if either driver reaches Q3 in the second qualifying session tomorrow, which decides the starting grid for the sprint race, neither will have tyres they are allowed to run on.
The pair can therefore start the sprint race no higher than ninth or 10th – a detail their teams may have taken into consideration when they chose to run their last remaining sets of soft tyres.
Pirelli’s head of motorsport Mario Isola confirmed the meaning of the rule. “If you look at the regulation you are obliged to use a new set of tyres,” he said. “Obviously it’s a new regulation and it’s probably needed to do some fine-tuning.”
F1’s official tyre supplier stated the two drivers had used all their soft tyres by the end of running on Friday.
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Drivers’ remaining tyres after qualifying
| Driver | Hard | Medium | Soft | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Used | New | Used | New | Used | |
| Max Verstappen | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Sergio Perez | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Charles Leclerc | 1 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Carlos Sainz Jnr | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Lewis Hamilton | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| George Russell | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Esteban Ocon | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Pierre Gasly | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 2 |
| Lando Norris | 1 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Oscar Piastri | 1 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Valtteri Bottas | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Guanyu Zhou | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Lance Stroll | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Fernando Alonso | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Nico Hulkenberg | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Kevin Magnussen | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Nyck de Vries | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Yuki Tsunoda | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Logan Sargeant | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Alexander Albon | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
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