And there you have it, the first qualifying session of the season and my my did we have some interesting results and a little change of the guard out front, only a little change of course. Despite being trapped with the BBC highlights this weekend the coverage was not too bad, only a couple of minutes shaved off each of the qualifying stages. The overall show may have been cut down by quite a bit being over an hour shorter than it used to be. But it does mean I can catch the start of the Sebring 12hrs the beginning of the WEC series, racing is all unveiling this weekend, and already in the opening 15 minutes there to today's qualifying session.
Before this document kicks off, you remember that formbook, might be a decent time to find the nearest open window and throw it away because it only bears a passing reference to the actual goings on at the track. Looking at the timing presented by the session, the prospect for the event in the early hours of tomorrow morning does look very promising indeed. Lots of cars running on a similar pace meaning the gaps we had between divisions - especially division one and two - has been significantly reduced and there is also a major overlap in the classes. Division three however.... less so.
Qualifying
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| Image from F1Fanatic.co.uk - An HRT at it's fastest |
Then came the turn of Sauber showing some unnatural speed, as Kobayshi went fastest and stayed there after the initial efforts from the division one cars, maintaining a fraction of a tenth over Jenson Button's McLaren and the Red Bull cars. But even that fluctuated as the division one cars moved ahead, sweeping the Lotus team along for the ride with Grosjean and Raikkonen skirting the fringes of the top 10. and Mercedes fighting much further towards the front.
Down towards the drop zone HRT were being rather slow, not as slow as they were in the Australian GP last season but still doing quite badly - never managing to get within 107% across the entire weekend, and won't be on the grid tomorrow. Division three remained the Heikki Kovalainen show as it had been all of 2011 and probably will be again, but this zone was joined by Felipe Massa in one of the very ill handling Ferraris. Felipe was forced to move onto the softer tyres to escape relegation placing Kimi in the danger zone. The Finn ran wide on his final effort dooming his return to the world of Formula one, while out front a brace of mid-field cars on soft tyres charged up the front - giving Kamui the lead once more ahead of Vergne and Perez.
Q2 started almost according to the 2011 hierarchy as both Red Bull drivers headed the pack with Vettel leading the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso with the McLarens yet to set a time. Then the session installed itself with a minor interval period when a car was positioned backwards in the turn one gravel trap, a victim of using some grass on turn in. And the owner of this stricken race machine, none other than the Spaniard Alonso demonstrating how difficult the new Ferrari is to drive. A red flag was thrown to clear the car and Alonso would take no further part in the session. But the power in Q2 shifted to Mercedes as the session restarted as both silver machines went to the front headed by Rosberg, followed closely by the two McLaren cars.
One of the surprises of the session other than Sauber in Q1, was the pace of Romain Grosjean reaching 5th in the second session, if that is the pace of Lotus Kimi is going to brilliant to watch tomorrow. Red Bull was droppped to 6th and 8th - but things were still going fairly bad in Ferrari HQ as Massa was stuck in relegation. What was even more embarrassing for Felipe is that he ended up several places behind his team-mate who span out of the session early on. Sauber opted for only a single run, hoping to use the pace they had in Q1, but gearbox issues kept Perez in the garage while Kamui only managed 13th.
So we ended up with a Q1 without any Ferrari entrants, I can't remember the last time that happened in the current format. But it did open the door for Maldonado and Hulkenberg to visit the shootout along with Daniel Ricciardo occupying the space I expected Raikkonen to be taking up. Rosberg was the first to take to the track in the final session to set the initial benchmark time including a fairly epic save two corners from the end of the lap. But his time was quickly destroyed by Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren a time which no-one would be able to beat - no-one even came within .7s in the first set of runs.
When round two rolled round more of the cars joined the track except Ricciardo - the official winner of the first penalty point of the season. Button came closest to beating his team-mate and claimed the remaining spot on the front row, impressively followed by the Lotus of Grosjean and Schumacher in 4th. The formerly all dominant Red Bull team line up 5th and 6th Webber ahead of the German bloke, who were in turn followed by another german bloke in the form of Nico Rosberg. While Maldonado and Hulkenberg rounded off the drivers who took part in Q1.
Time to award bonus points
Yes that time has arrived, after a winter away from the points schedule, here they are again and this time, this year the points system gets a little bit of an upgrade in both sessions borrowing the F1 points system from the old days. So here are the winners from the Australian GP qualifying session.
10pts - Romain Grosjean - On his first race weekend back making the top three in a car from the previous division two, very impressive.
6pts - Lewis Hamilton - That lap certainly deserves points - so here is 6
4pts - Pastor Maldonado - From being a pay driver in a weaker team to reach the top 10 well done
3pts - Kamui Kobayashi - For his performances in Q1 on both tyre compounds
2pts - McLaren - for proving that not having a stupid shaped nose is the best solution
1pt - Mercedes - Deserve a point for this clever wing device thing which clearly is helping matters
And the penalty points
Continuing from a standard I adopted last season where drivers who don't take part in the final part of qualifying on the basis of being boring just to save tyres get penalty points. So on that basis one penalty point will be served to Australian Daniel Ricciardo from Torro Rosso.
The penalties Series
After last year the table for this did get rather complex with all sorts of penalties being taken into consideration this time I will only look into driving standards penalties rather than technical infringements such as engine and gearbox changes. Therefore Perez's penalty for changing his gearbox will not be totalled up.
Looking to Tomorrow
Well, well, well, it all looks very exciting indeed, with a grid that doesn't conform to the norms of the past year, there are cars out of position pretty much all up and down the starting line up. Where there is this level of mismatched placings there is plenty of room for mayhem especially on the limited space available there at Melbourne, and mayhem causes safety cars and as they say over in America - cautions breed cautions - so it could be a very action packed day. Throw into that fast cars coming from the back, the likes of Kimi Raikkonen, Massa and Alonso a lot further back then they would prefer and those two DRS zones...
The Australian GP is set up wonderfully for a day of excitement, where I get so spy on the method which Sky TV approaches the coverage as I borrow a TV for the event, may as well enjoy the opening event in it's entirety. So after along winter, the drought of motor-racing is over, as the world, and the microcosm of blog HQ welcome in F1 2012 from Melbourne Australia - prepare the race snacks, this is going to be epic...
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