Belgian Grand Prix Sprint Shootout 2023-07-29

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Event
Belgian Grand Prix Sprint Shootout

Date
Sat 29th July 2023 UTC
Sat 29th July 2023 Local

Timestamp
2023-07-29T10:00:00

Time

10:00:00 UTC (12:00:00 Local)

Timezones
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24-05-03 03:00 (PST Los Angeles)
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24-05-03 05:00 (CST Chicago)
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24-05-03 06:00 (EST New York)
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24-05-03 11:00 (GMT London)
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24-05-03 12:00 (CET Paris)
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24-05-03 14:00 (GST Dubai)
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24-05-03 15:30 (IST Kolkata)
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24-05-03 19:00 (JST Tokyo)
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24-05-03 20:00 (AEDT Sydney)

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League
Formula 1

Season
2023

Round
13

Status

Location
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
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Video Highlights

Play on YouTube

Event Statistics

Description

The sprint shootout was held on 29 July 2023, and was scheduled at 12:00 local time (UTC+2), but was delayed by 35 minutes due to rain.

Sprint shootout report
The first segment, SQ1, would go underway with all cars on the intermediate compound. The wet track offered wildly differing fortunes for the teams. The fledging Aston Martin team, which had shown previous success in the season, were in much poorer form with Fernando Alonso only becoming the second-fastest car by session's end. Lance Stroll looked to be at threat to be knocked out, but would scrape past. The McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri also found themselves lacking the newfound pace, with Norris only making it past being the thirteenth fastest. Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen, Zhou Guanyu and Nico Hülkenberg – the latter failing to take advantage of the changing conditions and being inconvenienced due to an issue with the Haas pit crew's front jack – were all out of the session. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen topped the session.

The second segment, SQ2, was red-flagged due to Stroll's journey into the barriers and subsequent crash. He was unable to set a time. He had switched to medium tyres on a wet track and was suffering from a lack of grip. While Daniel Ricciardo was able to set a lap, the red flag greatly inconvenienced Stroll's teammate Alonso, Alexander Albon and Logan Sargeant, who were all knocked out – this in particular being Alonso's first time this season he could not progress to the third segment of a qualification. Meanwhile, George Russell barely made it out of the session once again.

Confusion arose after the FIA was revealed to have not declared the track to have been wet during SQ2, which led to Stroll switching to mediums despite the wet track and subsequently crashing and destroying the front section of his car during his outlap. As per sprint shootout regulations, teams must use a specific tyre compound during each segment; mediums in SQ1 and SQ2, and softs in SQ3. The track was wet during the session and as such the regulation did not apply. Fifteen minutes before the session began, FIA sporting director Steve Nielsen announced that the track would not be declared wet. A previous instance of such changing conditions was displayed in the Austrian Grand Prix earlier in the year.

The third segment, SQ3, saw everyone put on the softs as the track dried out. Verstappen was only second behind Lewis Hamilton, but improved his time and achieved the pole position for the sprint, with his teammate Sergio Pérez in eighth. Piastri saw himself bettering his British Grand Prix qualifying result by qualifying second, 0.011 seconds off of polesitter Verstappen.