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Toto Wolff was left frustrated with his Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Teams performance on Saturday at the Belgian Grand Prix as grid penalties for the front-runners had promised the chance of a strong showing in qualifying from the Silver Arrows.

However, with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell initially qualifying in seventh and eighth placed respectively, the team appears to have taken a step back in regard to performance following Formula One’s return from the summer break.

With grid penalties enforced for Verstappen, Leclerc and Ocon, the Mercedes duo will now start tomorrow’s race in the fourth and fifth positions on the grid.

Despite the strong starting position for tomorrow’s race, Wolff was left disappointed as he explained the team still does not have a full understanding of the W13.

“That was a very disappointing qualifying result, no matter that penalties for other cars tomorrow will push us up the grid. Four weeks ago in Hungary, we were on pole, albeit with some slightly unusual circumstances that played in our favour; today, we were 1.8 seconds off pole position.

Florida is rather notorious for its weather, especially in the summer months as sunny days can quickly become thunderstorms. Unfortunately, NASCAR continues to face this literal storm as the Cup Series‘ Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway had to be postponed from Saturday to Sunday at 10 AM Eastern Time.

Rain had forced qualifying to be cancelled on Friday and delayed the Xfinity Series race later that day, with the latter eventually ending at 1 AM the next morning. The weather remained non-ideal throughout Saturday as lightning and storms hit the track and pushed back the scheduled green flag at 7:46 PM before NASCAR finally decided to pull the plug on the race half an hour later. It is the third rain delay in the Cup Series in 2022 and the second involving a postponement after the Drydene 400 in May was moved a day after completing seventy-eight laps.

The 400 has suffered from rainouts multiple times in its history, with the 2014, 2015, and 2019 editions also being pushed from Saturday night to Sunday. The 1996, 2014, and 2019 races were shortened by rain, while the 2015 race ended after midnight on Monday. The Daytona 500 in February has also been subject to weather issues in the past, with the two most recent races being delayed or postponed.

With no qualifying taking place, Hendrick Motorsports team-mates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott will start on the front row via qualifying metric.

Alluding to his post-race interview gaffe at Watkins Glen, Elliott quipped on Twitter, “Not raining in Bristol btw..”

It was a bittersweet qualifying at the Belgian Grand Prix for Scuderia AlphaTauri, with Pierre Gasly taking a top ten start on Sunday after the demotion of several drivers due to grid penalties, while Yuki Tsunoda was left unsatisfied with a rough final lap that saw him finish nineteenth, placing him thirteenth on the grid.

AlphaTauri Technical Director Jody Egginton said that the team had made progress between Friday running and the final practice session, having found, ahead of qualifying, that the overnight set-up changes were effective.

“Following Friday running, we had a good picture of the areas we needed to focus on today. The analysis and subsequent set up changes made overnight pretty much delivered according to expectation, meaning both cars took a step forward in terms of balance for FP3. We included a longer run with both drivers in FP3 in order to try and gather some of the data we were missing following yesterday’s rain shower towards the end of FP2.”  

Egginton said that Gasly’s solid performance put him very close to a Q3 appearance in the midst of tight competition, ultimately finishing in twelfth place on the timesheets and starting eighth tomorrow. 

“Qualifying was, as expected, very tight in the midfield, but a strong first run in Q1 by Pierre provided a good basis to build on, which he subsequently did, with the car being well balanced and making Q2 without any fuss. Pierre’s first stint in Q2 on a used tyre was very strong and he built on this for his second outing on new tyres putting in a very clean lap, but unfortunately, we were missing the last 0.15s to make Q3, in what was a very tight session.”

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly qualified twelfth place ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, and will line up eighth after all grid penalties are applied for the several drivers that have had power unit and gearbox replacements this weekend. 

Gasly was pleased with his result in Spa, and felt that he and the team were able to extract maximum performance around Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. He added that there is, however, still pace to be found in the AlphaTauri as the season progresses. 

“It was a good Quali today, I’m really happy about my lap and how the car performed. The balance was great, and I felt like we maximised the package. We’re still not showing our full potential, so we’ve got some work to do as a team to make it into the top 10, but today I think we managed to get the best out of the car. 

With his top ten starting position, Gasly will want to break his streak of finishes outside of the points on Sunday. He said that the main challenge he’ll face on race day will be to maintain his position against the speedy front-runners that were relegated to the back due to penalties.

“We start P8 tomorrow, thanks to the penalties of some drivers, so we’ll have to make the most of that opportunity come the race. There’s going to be some fast cars behind us trying to move forward, so it’s going to be a hard race, but we’ll try our best to hold our position and to stay in the points.”

The SCORE International Baja 400 on 13/14 September will receive a northern infusion as the #203 Trophy Truck Spec entry is an all-Canadian lineup led by Ken Stanick with Jamie Willetts and Jason Bailey. It will be their first foray into SCORE competition as they will see if their rally experience can translate into desert racing.

Stanick, the Driver of Record, primarily competes in the Canadian Rally Championship‘s Open 4WD category in a Subaru. He is currently thirteenth in the overall standings after running two of the first three rounds. The 52-year-old North Vancouver native also has experience in the United States with the American Rally Association, including winning in the ARA West Championship and competing in the North American Rally Cup (a joint championship between CRC and ARA), and Northwest Rally Association.

Outside of racing, he is well versed in extreme sports from paragliding to kayaking. In 2003, he finished runner-up in the Yukon River Quest, the world’s longest kayaking marathon.

Stanick spent Thursday testing a Brenthel Trophy Truck for the 400. He wrote in an Instagram Story that he “was giddy” about the experience and the truck was “[t]he most badass toy I’ve ever played with”.

His Baja team-mates also race in CRC, with Willetts mainly being a co-driver while Bailey races in the Open 2WD class. Willetts won the 2020 ARA West overall and O2WD championships, and currently works alongside David Clark in ARA and Graham Bruce in the CRC’s O4WD. Bailey began his CRC career in 2013 in the underperforming “FrankenSAAB” 1968 SAAB 96 before working his way up to a Ford Fiesta and winning for the first time in 2017; he has four career class victories and scored the 2021 CRC 2WD title.

With the likes of Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris all taking grid penalties at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team entered the weekend with their sights firmly set on back-to-back pole positions.

The team hasn’t achieved back-to-back poles since last season’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and the Brackley-based teams wait will continue as both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell originally qualified in seventh and eighth position.

With the grid penalties taken into account Hamilton is set to start tomorrow’s Grand Prix on the second row of the grid in fourth place.

Despite the strong starting position for tomorrow’s Grand Prix, Hamilton was left disappointed with the sizeable gap between his Mercedes team and the likes of Oracle Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Ferrari. The seven-time world champion already appears to be switching his attention to the 2023 season as he called for his Mercedes team to regroup and come back stronger for next year.

“Everyone’s working hard for improvements, and we came here very optimistic that we’re going to close the gap, so to be 1.8 seconds behind is a real kick in the teeth but it is what it is. This is a car that we continue to struggle with, and I definitely won’t miss it at the end of the year.

“The other two teams ahead of us are in another league and we can’t keep relying on them to fall off. We have to regroup and make sure next year’s car is where we need it to be, and we’ll do the best we can with what we have for the rest of the season.”

Despite his W13 struggling with drag and aero balance around the Spa-Francorchamps Circuit this weekend, Hamilton has assured fans that he and his team will still try their best for a positive result in tomorrows Grand Prix.

“We were a little too draggy and the aero balance through the corners wasn’t stable so it’s very hard to work around that but we’ll try our best for tomorrow. Knowing how hard everyone is working, I’m gutted for the team because we’re giving it our all but it’s the fundamentals of this car – sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s really bad.”

Andreas Seidl says a lot of the choices the McLaren F1 Team made during Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday were made to maximise their potential for Sunday’s race.

Lando Norris went into the session knowing he would be starting towards the back of the pack after pre-race engine changes triggered grid penalties, and he made it into Q3.  He did not use a new set of soft tyres in the top ten shootout, instead saving them for potential usage on Sunday, when he will start eighteenth on the grid.

Daniel Ricciardo missed out on making it into Q3 by less than a tenth of a second, but grid penalties for Norris and three other drivers moves him up to seventh on the grid.

Seidl, the Team Principal at McLaren, is expecting an exciting race on Sunday with the grid mixed up thanks to the penalties for multiple drivers, and he hopes that the team can score good points with both Ricciardo and Norris as they continue their battle with the BWT Alpine F1 Team for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

“After qualifying today and once all the grid penalties are applied, we’ll be starting the race in P7 with Daniel and P18 for Lando,” said Seidl.  “Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get into Q3 with Daniel.

Daniel Ricciardo admitted to being disappointed not to make it into the top ten shootout in Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix, with the Australian missing out by less than a tenth of a second to Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon.

The McLaren F1 Team driver, who will leave the Woking-based team at the end of the season, was eleventh fastest in Q2 at Spa-Francorchamps, but thanks to grid penalties for other drivers, he will start further up the grid in seventh.

Ricciardo says that moving ahead of Albon is an obvious target for Sunday’s race, but he knows the likes of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, both of whom were amongst the drivers’ taking penalties, will be fighting their way through the field and will be difficult to keep behind.

“It’s a little bit disappointing to be so close to Q3 and there were a couple of little things which cost us, but it is what it is,” said Ricciardo.  “I think we did relatively well.

“This morning, we had to change specification of wing, so that was not as planned, but I still think we did quite well with that considered.

Laurent Mekies reflected on an ‘intense and complex’ Qualifying session for Scuderia Ferrari at Spa-Francorchamps on Saturday, and it ended with a pole position for Carlos Sainz Jr.

Max Verstappen may have set a blistering pace during the Qualifying hour in Belgium, but the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver went into the session knowing he would be starting towards the back of the pack following pre-weekend engine component changes and grid penalties.

Charles Leclerc was in the same boat in the other Ferrari so was used to benefit Sainz during Q3 with a tow down the Kemmel Straight on both of his Qualifying runs, although a scruffy lap meant the Spaniard was unable to improve on his second run.

But it was enough to beat the second Red Bull of Sergio Pérez and take pole position, while Leclerc will drop to sixteenth thanks to his penalties.

Mekies, the Sporting Director at Ferrari, says the aim on Sunday is to bring home a lot of points with both drivers, although it will be more difficult for Leclerc starting so far back.

Carlos Sainz Jr. says it is pleasing to be starting the Belgian Grand Prix from pole position this weekend, and it was good to have the benefit of a tow from team-mate Charles Leclerc during Q3.

The Scuderia Ferrari driver was second fastest overall on Saturday afternoon at Spa-Francorchamps behind Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen, but the Dutchman’s grid penalty for unscheduled engine component changes means he moves up to top spot for Sunday’s race.

Sainz believes Ferrari should be competitive on Sunday, although he is expecting Red Bull to be a factor, particularly with Sergio Pérez joining him on the front row and Verstappen being extremely fast all weekend long.

“We had a good qualifying and I’m happy to be starting on pole here in Spa,” said Sainz.  “It was today’s goal and we achieved it with perfect team work together with Charles. Now we need to focus on ourselves and make sure to keep our competitors behind us tomorrow.

“Defending from them won’t be easy, especially at the start, as their performance has been very strong this weekend. I’m ready for a race in which we will fight with everything we have to bring home another win.

Alan Permane was full of praise for the teamwork done by the BWT Alpine F1 Team during Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday, and they were rewarded with the fifth and sixth fastest times in Q3.

Esteban Ocon was the quicker of the two drivers in fifth, with Fernando Alonso just behind in sixth, but a penalty for the former relegates him to seventeenth on the grid.  The latter, on the other hand, profits from the penalty, as well as from the penalties from Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, and will start third.

Both drivers offered tows down the long Kemmel Straight during the session, which enabled them to find extra speed and lap time, and it meant they were able to out-qualify both McLaren F1 Team drivers, their closest rivals in the Constructors’ Championship.

Permane, the Sporting Director at Alpine, says scoring points with both cars on Sunday is the aim, although he knows the likes of Verstappen and Leclerc, in much faster cars, coming through the field will make it difficult to maintain third place.

“We’re very happy with today’s performance in Qualifying with Esteban fifth, Fernando sixth and, importantly, ahead of our rivals,” said Permane.  “What pleases me most is the teamwork by everyone today, including both drivers who did a great job in executing our plan.

Fernando Alonso was delighted to see the BWT Alpine F1 Team qualify strongly for the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday, with the Spaniard set to start third on the grid once all the penalties have been applied to those around him.

Initially Alonso’s best lap was good enough for sixth, but penalties for Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Esteban Ocon moves him up three places on the grid, and from there he feels he can do something in the race.

Alonso knows that the drivers out of position – such as Verstappen and Leclerc – will be doing all they can to recover on Sunday, but the two-time World Champion will be happy if he is still inside the top five or six at the end of the race.

“I am happy with our performance today and it’s a positive result for the team with both cars qualifying inside the top six positions,” said Alonso.  “We gave each other the tow during the session, and it worked really well.

“It will be exciting tomorrow and, like in Canada, it’s another opportunity to attack inside the top three at the start. Tomorrow, I want a clean race to capitalise on this position.

Christian Horner was full of praise for Max Verstappen after Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday, although the Dutchman will have a lot of work to do on Sunday as grid penalties for engine component changes relegates him to fifteenth.

Verstappen was on fire all the way through the Qualifying session at Spa-Francorchamps and set by far the quickest lap time of the session in Q3.  It was so quick that he did not need to go out again for a second attempt.

Horner, the Team Principal at Oracle Red Bull Racing, says it will be exciting to see how Verstappen and his main championship rival – Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc – will fight through the field on Sunday afternoon.

“It was an unbelievable Qualifying from Max today, the lap time was so good he didn’t need to do the second run,” said Horner.  “He has been absolutely on fire this weekend.

“It’s a hard fight from P15 and there are always risks associated with that but we are in for a fantastic race tomorrow with Max and Charles fighting their way through the field.”

Max Verstappen was in sublime form during Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday, but the Dutchman knew going into the session that he would be starting towards the back of the pack on Sunday thanks to penalties caused by engine component changes.

The Oracle Red Bull Racing driver was amazing right through the Qualifying hour, setting just one quick lap in each of the three segments, and would have started comfortably on pole position but for his penalties.

Nevertheless, Verstappen will start the race down in fifteenth, but he feels the RB18 has the potential to make big gains and even contend for a podium finish on Sunday afternoon at Spa-Francorchamps.

“It was an amazing qualifying; the car has been on it all weekend and it’s been very enjoyable to drive,” said Verstappen.  “We fine-tuned a few things overnight and it seemed to work out.

“I’m very happy with my lap and it’s great to be here, it’s a great track with amazing fans around, I hope they had a good day.

Liam Lawson has won his third Sprint Race of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 season after starting from fifth on the grid at Circuit de Spa–Francorchamps.

The Red Bull Reserve Driver was joined on the podium by Jack Doohan and Ralph Boschung who battled for the second spot on the podium in the late stages of the race.

Felipe Drugovich and Richard Verschoor rounded out the top five respectively, with Théo Pourchaire in sixth and Marcus Armstrong in seventh.

David Beckmann doubled his point-tally for the season as he clinched the final points paying position of the race in eighth place.

As the five lights went out, Lawson made a hugely committed move and took to the grass to take second place at turn one behind pole-sitter Boschung who got away cleanly.