 |
| Lewis Hamilton Gets Pole For a 2nd Race in a Row. Joined here by team mate Button who will start 2nd and Schumacher 3rd |
We are looking at McLaren and Mercedes following the practice sessions. They don't always give us the answers, but they look the best bet for pole. Lewis Hamilton looked fantastic on Friday, Michael Schumacher was also looking good. It wouldn't surprise me to find a silver front two rows. We will see as Qualifying starts in a few minutes. As we know anything can happen in qualifying. Caterham will be looking to battle with the midfield today, can Vitaly and Heikki get one of the cars into qualifying two?
Qualifying 1
We find out from the Pit Wall that there is a large rain cell located to the west of the track. They are not expecting rain in this session but we may well have rain at some point during proceedings today.
We are go for qualifying, however unusually no one is waiting at the lights to go straight out. Caterham have said that they are happy with race pace, but are trying to understand why their qualifying pace isn't quiet right.
The first car out is Paul Di Resta followed by Nico Hulkenberg. They are the only ones on track as we are two minutes into the session.
Lots more cars have joined the Force India's on the track. Paul Di Resta is the first to set a time and that is 1:38.927. Everyone is now on track apart from the HRT's and Vettel, talking about them will they get in the 107% rule. Raikkonen has gone top with a 1:37.961. Hamilton's just topped that with his first lap and put down a benchmark of 1:37.904. At the moment only 12 drivers have put in a time. Button beats Hamilton then Rosberg goes fastest in his Mercedes. The bottom 7 who go out in this round are so far in that seven are Massa, Petrov, Kovalainen, Glock, Pic, Karthikeyen and De La Rosa. Schumacher is currently fastest with a 1:37.517. Both Red Bull's are pretty much safe but Vettel is 7th and Webber 12th. There are two compounds of tyres for this race and each tean has just three sets of them. For this race its the hard and the medium that Pirelli have chosen. It's a surprise to see both Ferrari's going out on the medium compound at this stage. Massa will be the first to cross the finish line and moves himself 11th, he can't relax on the time though. Already Massa has gone down to 13th.
Webber has just put himself on top with a good lap. The session finishes and the grid from 17th to 22nd are as follows;
18th Vergne - Toro Rosso
19th Kovalainen - Caterham
20th Petrov - Caterham
21st Glock- Marussia
22nd Pic - Marussia
23rd De La Rosa - HRT
24th Karthikyan - HRT
Karthikeyan is over five seconds off the pace but is just is inside the 107% by a tenth of a second. Kovakaiinen takes a five plactie grid penalty so will start at the back with the HRT's. Webber's time stayed as the fastest for this session.
Qualifying 2
With Webber setting the fastest lap late on in the last session, I think that shows that the track has now bedded in and there is a decent amount of rubber laid down. I think that this session is going to be exciting.
Light is green, 15 minutes of fast action is on it's way.
Perez is first on track in his Sauber.We have just seen that the rain is not expected in this session. The first time set is a 1:39.043, that certainly won't be the top time for very long. Kobayashi knocks his team mate off top spot beating him by around a second. That was literally quickly followed by Kimi Raikkonen as he puts his Lotus top 1.443 seconds faster than the Saubers. A good time by Raikkonen, that will be difficult to beat in his session. With 8 minutes remaining 13 teams have set a time. Button and Hamilton are 2nd and 3rd in the standings. We are half way through the session and the drop zone looks like this Massa, Perez, Di Resta, Hulkenberg, Maldonado, Senna and Grosjean. Kimi certainly hasn't lost any of his talent, you can see that by the comparison to his team mate, it's just a shame that Kimi has a five place grid penalty because of a gearbox change. I'm now watching Felipe Massa in the worryingly poor Ferrari, he is 11th fastest at the moment and in the drop zine, lets see if he can drag his way out of danger and get a good lap in. Whilst we were watching Massa, we have flipped to Grosjean in the Lotus, to see if he can get up there with Kimi, don't forget he is only a sort of half rookie, as he's raced in F1 before. He should be able to get the Lotus in the top 10, Romain doesn't disappoint and goes into 4th place. The Lotus is looking good on low fuel, what will it be like on full load tomorrow? We will have to wait and see. Back to MassaMassa is just going round the last corner and goes into 9th, that won't be safe, I'm sure of that. He will need another go. Alonso is just about to cross the line, will he get back into the top 10 and beat his team mate, he does and goes 6th (not 5th, maybe that's to come in the pole position shoot out). With just over a minute to go Senna crosses the line in his Williams and sits 12th, he can still get another lap in. Maldonado has ust put his Williams into 9th position which has put Massa's Ferrari and both Mercedes in deep trouble. They all need to pull something special out of the bag right now. Hulkenberg goes 15th. The chequered flag has now just fallen, both Mercedes are on hot laps. They cannot make a mistake, and they need to be the best laps they can do. We've seen them in practice and I personally expected them to be fighting for pole position. Let's see what happens, we are watching Schumacher, he has traffic in frint of him, he passes them with ease, at the end of the second sector he is half a second up on 10th place, so barring any mistakes he should be ok, let's see his final sector. For a moment we switch to Rosberg in the other Mercedes and goes into 3rd position so is safe and will be in the pole position shoot out, Schumacher gets himself into 4th just behind his team mate. We loose a Ferrari, Felipe Massa couldn't make it through.
So the session is over so the grid from 11th to 17th looks like this;
11th Maldonado - Williams
12th Massa - Ferrari
13th Senna - Williams
14th Di Resta - Force India
15th Ricciardo - Toro Rosso
16th Hulkenberg - Force India
17th Kobayashi - Sauber
Now it's time for the pole position shoot out.
Pole Position Shoot out - Qualifying Session 3
The ten minute session has started. The first man out is Raikkonen We now have the current world champion out n track. Will the Red Bull's get to the front, have they been sandbagging? We are about to find out. The McLarens are both out on track. The Mercedes are both waiting, perhaps to do only one run. I have just learnt that Sergio Perez will only do one run. Raikkonen is rhe first man to lay down a time for everyone to chase, he sets a time of 1:36.837 for everyone to try and beat. Button comes round the final bend in the McLaren and goes faster straight away with a 1:36.627. Hamilton is coming round the final corner as Button crossed the line, what can he do? Hamilton now goes 1st with a 1:36.219 nearly half a second quicker. Next up it's time to see if Red Bull have been sandbagging or whether some work needs to be done on the car to bring it up to speed, as Mark Webber crosses the line with a 1:37.011 putting him 4th at the moment. Grosjean is next across the line and he goes 5th. Now its the double world champion, Vettel to cross the line, and there seems to be no sand bags in the Red Bull garage as he can only manage 6th, over a second off the pace.We are half way through the session. Both Mercedes are out on a clear track, lets see what Rosberg and Schimacher, Rosberg is having a poor lap, he's locked up under braking and gone wide on a couple of occasions. He is in a car that is capable of pole, perhaps it's the pressure. Perez in the Sauber has just gone out for his only lap (apparently). Rosberg is about half a second down in the 2nd sector. He has pulled something out the bag in the final sector to put him 3rd for the moment. At the end of the 2nd sector Schiumacher was down on pole by 0.232 seconds. All the cars are now on track and Raikkonen has gone out on a brand new set of tyres. Schumacher will be next over the line as we have just over 2 minutes left of the session. Schumacher goes 2nd by a small margin. Now it's all about these final laps, it could all change now. At the moment we have a all silver front two rows as I predicted earlier. Perez puts his Sauber on 9th. Rosberg is happy with his time as he has gone into the pits along with Schumacher, they obviously believe they've done enough or their cars were only fuelled for the one flying lap. Hamilton is out on track and going faster than his original time. Webber is coming to line now and he goes 3rd fastest, a great lap by webber. Raikkonen crosses the line and goes 4th (putting him 9th due to a five place grid penalty). Vettel is now coming down the long straight towards the last corner, what can he do? He can only manage 6th, out qualified by Mark Webber. Jenson Button is right behind him and crosses the line in 2nd to give a 2nd front row lock out for McLaren in a row. Grosjean is the last man to cross the line and puts his Lotus 7th.
So here is the grid order for the top 10 (prior to penalties)
1st Hamilton - McLaren
2nd Button - McLaren
3rd Schumacher - Mercedes
4th Webber - Red Bull
5th Raikkonen - Lotus
6th Vettel - Red Bull
7th Grosjean - Lotus
8th Rosberg - Mercedes
9th Alonso - Ferrari
10th Perez - Sauber
Yet another great Saturday for McLaren. I'm looking forward to what should be a great race tomorrow. We'll be covering it with a report on the race tomorrow.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment