Russell, who qualified fourth in Spain last year, but led the first lap after overtaking Norris and Verstappen around the outside of the first corner, said: “Very close with Max and Lando, definitely not in the fight for pole but other than Monaco we have been in the top five every qualifying. We know that’s where the car is on a Saturday.
“Our goal is to try and improve the race pace. We have made some pretty drastic changes to the set-up this weekend, positive that it hasn’t hindered qualifying pace but whether it will improve the race pace is another story.”
Hamilton, 0.499secs from pole, said he was “relatively happy with it” because it had been “definitely an improvement from where we’ve been”.
Leclerc, two places further back, was restricted on tyres in qualifying because Ferrari used a set of softs in final practice to ensure he had an extras set of mediums for the race.
He did a half-lap on a second set of softs in Q2 in case he needed to improve to ensure he progressed. He manage to abort it, but that left him only one run in the final session, which he did early. Leclerc said that made qualifying “tricky” and added: “I hope our tyre choice will pay off tomorrow.”
Alonso, who also had only one fresh set of soft tyres for Q3, leapt up to fifth place when he did his lap in the middle of the session, and whooped over the radio – having felt it was a good one.
But he tumbled down to the bottom of the top 10 as others did their laps later.
“It was good the whole weekend to be honest,” he said. “Always in the top 10 in all sessions, Q3 in 0.1secs you can finish P7 or P10. We are the last of that group but let’s see what we can do.”
His performance suggested that the upgrades put on the car for Imola two races ago, and which carried some influence from new managing technical partner Adrian Newey, are having an effect but the team admit the car remains very difficult to drive, even if it has more performance.
Alonso’s team-mate Lance Stroll was 0.535secs slower in Q2 and then missed the weigh bridge at the end of the session, so has been reported to the stewards.
Aston Martin later announced Stroll would miss Sunday’s race because he requires surgery for a wrist injury.
The team said he had been experiencing pain in his hand and wrist for the past six weeks, which is believed to be related to a procedure he underwent in 2023 after breaking his wrists in a cycling accident.
A reserve driver is not able to take his place given Stroll had already qualified.
