Summary

  • Verstappen passes Leclerc on penultimate lap to win sprint race at Imola

  • P3 Perez, P4 Sainz, P5 Norris, P6 Ricciardo, P7 Bottas, P8 Magnussen

  • Both Mercedes finish outside top 10

  • Top 8 finishers receive points: 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

  • Verstappen to start Sunday's main race from pole position

  • First of three sprint race weekends in 2022 season

  1. Postpublished at 11:34 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    Jamie Chadwick
    Williams F1 development driver and W Series champion

    The tyres seem to be the weird thing this year, mainly in qualifying but also in the race - trying to understand the operating window.

  2. Postpublished at 11:34 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

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  3. Postpublished at 11:32 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    George Russell is out bright and early as Mercedes look to try and sort the issues that plagued them yesterday.

    Lance Stroll and Mick Schumacher are also out on the track but Valtteri Bottas is going nowhere soon because his car is up on the stands and being worked on.

  4. What's changed in the sprint for 2022?published at 11:31 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    More points is the main thing. The winner of today's 100km dash around the circuit will earn eight points compared with only three in last year's sprint races.

    That also means the top eight will score points, compared with the top three in 2021.

    How the drivers finish today's sprint race will determine their positions on the grid for tomorrow's grand prix.

    Yesterday's qualifying determined the grid for today's sprint race.

  5. Go! Go! Go!published at 11:30 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    Packed stand full of fans waving Ferrari flags at ImolaImage source, Reuters

    The sun is out and so are the Tifosi!

    The Ferrari fans are packing the stands and covering every blade of grass trackside as final practice gets under way.

  6. Postpublished at 11:27 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

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  7. Listen to practice livepublished at 11:26 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    Second practice is about to get under way and you can listen to live audio commentary via this page right now.

  8. Weather updatepublished at 11:25 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

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  9. Postpublished at 11:23 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    It was a nightmare day for Carlos Sainz yesterday as he crashed out in Q2 and will start the sprint race later in 10th.

    Today is another day, however, and plenty of time for him to turn a bad start into a great weekend.

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  10. Mercedes' tyre strugglespublished at 11:20 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    Andrew Benson
    BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

    Mercedes set an unwanted landmark on Friday when they failed to get either car into the top 10 qualifying shootout for the first time in nearly 10 years - since the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix, to be precise. The Mercedes is not competitive but they were to some degree victims of the staccato session, and did not get a chance to show their true potential.

    Mercedes have been struggling getting their tyres into the right temperature window this year, and tend to do their best laps “on the third lap or fifth lap doing fast-slow-fast,” as George Russell put it. But the red flag for Carlos Sainz’s crash meant they only got to do their first lap, before it rained.

    “Today was a fairly painful example of that,” said trackside operations director Andrew Shovlin, "where we couldn’t get the runs in that were long enough to build the temperature to get the tyres in the right window. Our race pace has normally been good; we’ve demonstrated that we’re third-quickest on race pace.

    “It’s on the single lap we seem to be very much in the midfield. We still need to understand why we can’t match some of the mid-grid teams even. We know Red Bull and Ferrari have got more downforce right now but we should be able to perform in the same position that we’re racing, which is realistically the third-quickest team.”

    Lewis HamiltonImage source, PA Media
  11. Tough times for Mercedespublished at 11:17 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    .Image source, Getty Images

    The season is not going at all to plan for Mercedes and for the first time in a decade they failed to have a car in Q3.

    It led to Lewis Hamilton saying each weekend is now turning into a rescue weekend, rather than ones he goes in believing if he can potentially win. Or even get on the podium.

  12. Postpublished at 11:15 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    Imagine the conversations at this table!

    Might be a tad awkward if Christian Horner needs Toto Wolff to pass him the bread basket.

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  13. Coming uppublished at 11:12 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    There's one final hour of practice from 11:30 BST before the first sprint race of the season gets under way at 15:30 BST.

  14. Postpublished at 11:08 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

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  15. Postpublished at 11:07 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    So, a beautiful day today but is all as it seems..?

  16. Postpublished at 11:05 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

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  17. Postpublished at 11:02 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    Andrew Benson
    BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

    After the rain of Friday, the sun is out on Saturday seeking to make amends, and the verdant hills around Imola, dotted with vineyards, look resplendent under a bright blue sky laced with light, fluffy clouds.

    The stage looks set for another Charles Leclerc-Max Verstappen battle in Saturday’s sprint race for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. There will be no intervention from team-mates, after difficult sessions for Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez for one reason or another, but who has the advantage? It’s hard to tell after a Friday that ended with Verstappen on pole but a qualifying line-up that did not necessarily reflect true pace.

    Verstappen was fastest by 0.8 seconds but that is nothing like the true comparison of the cars. Leclerc was narrowly faster on their first laps in final qualifying but he chose to abort his second one to prepare his tyres better for a final two-lap shot, whereas Verstappen kept going.

    On that second lap, Verstappen came across the stranded Alfa Romeo of Valtteri Bottas but still managed to improve by nearly a second despite slowing for the yellow flags it prompted. Then the red flag was flown before Leclerc could go again, and when the rain started again in the stoppage period, that was the end of the Ferrari driver’s hopes. “I think we had the pace,” Leclerc said. “We were very strong all session. But it never happened because there was a red flag. But it is like this. Max did an incredible job and fair play to him. It is disappointing because I wanted to be on pole but it is the way it is.”

  18. That's more like itpublished at 10:59 British Summer Time 23 April 2022

    .Image source, Getty Images

    Anyone else end up dreaming of red flags last night?

    There were no fewer than five in yesterday's qualifying that was more stop-start than a game of musical chairs on fast forward.

    Those disruptions were largely down to the conditions after a day of a rain but, thankfully, for sprint race day the weather is looking a lot more like this:

    .Image source, Getty Images