After rendering the alarm clock obsolete by waking myself prior to it being needed in the early hours of this morning in time for the second qualifying session of the year. We now have a grid set in place for tomorrows Grand Prix of Malaysia, where the sky is filled with uncertainty - the rain was avoided today but is looking likely for tomorrow.
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| SRC: http://beautifulmalaysia.net/ |
Developments since Australia
Looking at the times and performances from all the sessions so far it looks like things have remained roughly the same as they did back at the opening event. Red Bull still have the fastest car especially in the hands of Sebastien Vettel as he managed another pole position and one of only two cars under 1:35. However the advantage he and the team has over the rivals has been cut this weekend, Mclaren are much closer to the lead car, with the deficit only standing at 0.14s which is a minimal gap to Hamilton in second also under 1:35. All four representatives from the two teams occupied the top two rows of the grid.
Further down the field the competitors pretty much held position, with the notable exception of Heidfeld who made a significant jump from Melbourne to join team-mate petrov inside the top ten for Renault, surrounding the Ferrari of Massa. Dropping further down the grid Kobayashi remained the dominant force in the Sauber team six places ahead of one-stop Perez.
At the back of the grid comes the biggest improvement out of the entire grid - HRT have got both their cars through the qualifying process and this time can bring their cars out and into their starting positions ready for their first race of the season. After practice session plagued by failures and lots of smoke leaking from Narain's car the team have found some pace to enter the race. Of course we can't lavish too much praise upon the team because although they've made the start they've only just reached the point they were are last year.
Qualifying
The lights went green at the end of pit lane to declare the start of Q1, and a grand total of nothing happened - the field sat in their garages reluctant to venture onto the circuit. But after a couple of minutes of hiding from the Malaysian heat the first few contenders made their escape, starting with the progressing HRT squad, and once the floodgates opened the rest of the grid joined in. At the 12 minute mark, Buemi's car decided it was claustrophobic and shed some of its bodywork on the exit of turn four.
The discarded sidepod and other associated parts brought out a red flag to allow marshals to clear away the escaping cover while Buemi retreated to pit lane with the intricate cooling mechanisms exposed to the world with it's gold lining on the engine wall. At the restart Lotus were first on track and made some impressive times which temporarily placed them outside the relegation zone but the natural order returned and last years new teams were rejected in Noah's Ark formation on the last rows.
Williams were the major disappointment with both cars languishing around the drop zone, the final relegation place was finally handed to the slowest of the pair in the hands of rookie Pastor Maldonado.
And then there were 16 left to contend the second phase of the session. McLaren went to the top of the time sheets throughout the session with Button and his dubious shampoo advertising leading the field. But it was in the mid pack that things were interesting with the battle around the edge of the top ten was a lot closer. Where the mid-field were fighting over the two remaining places after the top four teams had claimed their entry. Initially it was thought their would be three available places for the others but Heidfeld applied some authority and joined his Renault team-mate.
At first the last two slots were held by Schumacher and Buemi with sidepod intact, but as time went by and positions changed with Kobayashi planting the well into the top ten to secure entry to Q3. The last place was in internal affair within the Mercedes outfit with Rosberg claiming the last entry place and booting his more successful team-mate into relegation which continues Michaels run of 11th place qualification finishes this year.
Then there was only the final ten to assign the rest of the grid positions. The session began with the top four opening their accounts with their first runs, the first victory went to Vettel taking a tenth out of Hamilton who held first for a few seconds. While the top four headed back to the pits for some new wheels, the rest of the contenders left to make their runs knowing that they were competing amongst themselves. This group was headed by Alonso in the off pace Ferrari and Heidfeld's Renault both were followed by their teammates. The final places in the top ten were claimed by the two entries from outside the top four teams Rosberg and Kamui in 9th and 10th respectively.
The official Bonus Points Championship points winners.
At the end of qualifying it is time to award a saturday's five bonus points - and without the aid of a gold envelope or some exciting intro music here are the award winners from today.
1, HRT - A point has to be awarded to them for making the grid and making the biggest step since round one in Australia
2. Vettel - Suppose you should get a point for being the fastest but this time this point is conreted by the continuation of Sebastien's naming convention for his cars dubbing the current chassis "Kinky Kylie" which is more... unusual then normal.
3. Rosberg - He gets a point for binning schumey out of the top ten zone still giving the old guy a good beating even though it only works out at two places overall.
4. Heidfeld - His comeback performance after being thoroughly beaten last time by Petrov is worth a point, after being top Renault throughout the weekend and scoring a 6th place grid slot matching Vitaly's performance in Melbourne.
5.Barrichello - The final point goes to Rubens after his unusual display of affection for Eddie Jordan after the session and deserves a point for bravery if not anything else.
These points will now be added to the championship standings page, along with the addition of Narain's speeding fine from Friday practice to be added to the penalty Table.
Looking to the race
Things at the front should be a lot closer then they were in Australia with McLaren only tenths behind Red Bull in terms of pace whether that translates into race pace is a different matter. Behind this group will be quite a void separating Ferrari and Renault from the leaders which in turn will be followed by the immense gaggle that is the mid-field.
It is in this main block where the change of positions are more likely with Williams and Force India looking to make some ground on the cars in front of them. And as this group contains the rookies of Maldonado, Di Resta and one-stop Perez this could also be the most volatile batch of drivers.
But all this will be at the mercy of the weather, some reports are expecting storms and showers tomorrow which may coincide with the race start time. Given the veracity with which rain tends to affect Malaysia things could become very interesting indeed especially considering very few drivers have ran the new wet weather tyres.
So set the alarms and get ready for Malaysia 2011.
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