Qualifying for another week has come to a conclusion and although I can't see them the GP2 and GP3 cars will be taking to the circuit to take care of the weekend's quota of destruction and safety cars. But will catch up with the first GP2 race later when Eurosport deciding that 10pm is close enough to being live some seven hours later, and GP3 nearly a day behind schedule - apparently Tennis and Cycling are more important pah.
The fifth session of the season followed pretty much an identical pattern as the rest of the Qualifying sessions we've seen. However away from the front of the grid there were a couple of changes within what is now a rather devalued phase of the weekend. More drivers than normal have been electing to sacrifice speed in qualifying to conserve in tyres which did rather dilute Q3 and puts so much more focus on the main event tomorrow.
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| Sourced from F1Fanatic.co.uk |
Changes since Turkey
Quite a lot has remained the same since we last saw the cars in the Eastern reaches of Europe on the other side of the Bosphorus, the same set of teams and drivers occupy the front zone of the grid and dominating all of the timesheets. Red Bull have illustrated their complete anhilation of the grid being able to easy claim the front row and without any pressure from anyone else, building a second lead from the rest of the teams.
McLaren remain the closest competitor albeit a week behind a the paring of Webber and Vettel everyone else is virtually in GP2 by comparison. Ferrari have shown that the pace they showed in Turkey wasn't a fluke performance well at least in the context of Alonso's car - Massa is not exactly getting the full potential out of the car and being comprehensively beaten by the Spaniard.
In the mid pack the greatest improvement has to come from Williams and even more surprisingly in the hands of the usually rather rubbish Pastor Maldonado who has spent a lot of the season's practice sessions crashing and using up the teams supply of front wings. But this session bringing the car into Q1 while Rubens was beset with technical difficulties. Sauber and Force India have gone the other way seeing the shadow of the points scoring positions fading into the distance.
Things have been shuffling down at the back of the grid too, Lotus a have made major gains with Heikki defeating both Force Indias and Rubens ailing Williams. Also both of the usually back row pairing in the HRT garage were faster then Virgin's D'Ambrosio... on pace which is not a good sign for the Belgian being 1.2s behind Glock.
Qualifying
The first session was to take place one car down as a result of Nick Heidfeld from the Renault Sqaudron had a rather incendiary dilemma in the morning's final practice session and the charred car couldn't be repaired in time to join the party. This filled the remaining spot that is usually assigned for an established driver... or that's what we thought.
Q3 was easy for most of the field - and the top four cars being able to secure progression without using up some of the hallowed softer tyres whereas everyone else felt the need to eat into their supply to remain safe. Which was overly cautious for Mercedes (even though it gifted the fastest time to Grandpa Schumacher) and Alonso - but kept Massa out of the drop-zone. Rubens was not so lucky, defeated by gearbox problems he couldn't reach the same speed as his team mate and was beaten by both Lotus cars and Heikki escaped into Q2 a remarkable achievement.
A similar story in the next segment - the top teams had no problems securing a place in the final session with Red Bull beginning to show what the were really capable of. pulling a half second gap. Force India at the other end of the timesheets elected not to bother having a go on the soft tyres and wrote off their qualifying with a view of having a better race than the Lotus in front.
Sauber were encountered a lack of pace in the session moving from challenging for a top 10 to battling with STR but 2s ahead of Heikki. Massa was still having difficulties barely managing get through to the next session just over a tenth ahead of Buemi. With the two orange cars at the bottom of the timings with Di Resta again beating Sutil the Criminal behind Kovalainen
Then things moved onto Q1 and for a while nothing happened - the remaining ten which included a surprisingly fast Maldonado who filled the space vacated by Heidfeld after warming his car a little too much this morning. Red Bull and Mclaren were the first cars to leave the garage to set the early pace - Vettel was first and buried the car deep into the low 1:21's considerably faster than anyone else had been..... so far. Webber had decided that the German had won too many pole positions this year and took two tenths out of him to move into the 1:20's.
No-one else could come close both McLarens were hundredths shy of a second behind and within three hundredths of each other. That was their runs over and done with - Red Bull didn't need to do anything and McLaren were powerless to compete, attention shifted to the remaining drivers who had taken to the track. Alonso was the fastest of the second group managing to get between the two British drivers behind his best friend Hamilton.
Schumacher was up to something - leaving the pit lane on the hard tyres to entice others to follow suit but drove round and pitted again setting no time, I'm not really sure what he was trying to achieve but all that he did do was save some tyres for tomorrow. There was a good showing for Petrov who beat Rosberg in a car which has been losing pace to the Mercedes, with Massa who is not having a great weekend and Maldonado rounding off the cars that set times.
The Official Bonus Points Championship points winners.
Qualifying may have lost some of the importance as a result of tyres and the new devices the teams get to play with, but the Bonus Point Championship is still in effect on Saturday so points do get awarded still for their efforts.
- Heikki Kovalainen - Getting into Q2 and beating the whole Force India Team even though they were on hard tyres
- Maldonado - For not being rubbish this time and making the top ten
- Alonso - For maximising the speed of the Ferrari and well beating Massa in the same car - and for finally not being 5th
- Webber - For being on pole and not being Vettel
- HRT - For not being last
Dubious Dealings entries
- Grandpa Schumacher - I'm not sure whether he is getting penalty points yet but his Q3 outing was rather suspicious
Looking to Tomorrow
Well all is now set for 66 laps of the Spanish GP on Sunday afternoon - but we are not expecting one of the most exiting rounds of the season. It is rather probable that Red Bull will sail off into the distance very much in the same vein of the Schumacher domination era before old age set in.
Behind McLaren and Alonso will be competing for the remaining podium place with everyone else arguing over the rest of the points. But one of the most interesting things to keep an eye on over the race is the progress of Nick Heidfeld from the back row of the grid - as like we saw with Kobayashi and Webber in previous races he has fresh tyres. It's is Nick's turn to do a Webber as it is now called after China - aiming for points in a car which is as Petrov showed top 10 material so I can foresee some bonus points coming his way if he manages a good run.
So things may be fairly stagnant for the front of the race but with the longest DRS zone of the year and the biggest tyre disparity could change that fate who knows what will unfold. So I would love to proven wrong and for have the race to be an epic showing so I shall hope for some racing to compete with the inevitable madness of the lower formula support races.
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