As the season glides into the realm of hospitable time zones the problem of SKY taking over everything this season has becoming more irritating than normal because the minimalist version of Qualifying on the BBC happens to be in the early evening. Borderline tolerable for simple regular viewing (if you didn't have siblings who'd rather boil you acid then relinquish their usage of television) but when you have to spend several hours afterwards writing these things the remainder of the day does rather fade away into nothingness as the last characters will fall into place a long way from now, and the same procedure will take place tomorrow albeit rather exacerbated as there is more to document. Depending on whether I can catch a stream of the event over the internet the report may have to wait till Monday due to other more important commitments in the afternoon.
But time to turn things back towards the session which has just finished on the internet a few moments ago where some changes in the formbook have swept into position once more so it was definitely a good idea to leave it outside in the Malaysian rain all those weeks ago. Those silver cars that lined the front row only a week ago are no longer out front replaced by someone rather familiar lining up with only clean air sitting between them and the tight first corner. All the way down the field there were changes, cars we expected to be at the bottom of the mid-field trying to scrape themselves away from an early relegation, which in itself thrown up an interesting change too, so here it the way I think qualifying turned out from the sleepy highlights.
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| Petrov ahead of Heikki for once: from F1Fanatic.co.uk |
I initially attempted to catch qualifying live on the internet but there whoever was running the stream decided they only wanted to play the pre-event build up, who in their right mind makes that decision seriously... but several hours later. After playing the BTCC tape from last weekend I couldn't catch due to rehearal, ah the sacrifices we make for the arts, hence the report tomorrow could be delayed, but the race recordings were interesting where Plato decided to hit people once more turning into quite the moron really - but it does make for hilarious racing people being a prat every now and again.
Onto Q1 and the highlights program didn't show much occurring for the first few moments so it was evident that the drivers were not overly intent on going out on track so early, probably limiting the running to avoid over using the tyres. With the track temperatures being higher than we've seen this season on a long sand-blasted abrasive the tyre wear is predicted to be high, leading to more stops in the race with 3 being the optimum strategy. But Di Resta was first to see the circuit in this session, after the team neglected to run in FP2, opting to go back to the hotel before night set in, perhaps thinking that the protesters are actually vampires. He was followed in succession and then defeated by his team-mate Nico Hulkenberg.
At the halfway point Kobayashi lead the pack as Alonso left the garage immediately on the soft-tyres, an indication of how insecure Ferrari are about their pace knowing they couldn't make it on the harder compound. Inevitably the softer tyre took Fernando to the front of the grid, while Rosberg was exploring the vast vibrantly painted tarmac with a pointless ribbon of gravel which neither him nor I expected to be there. Hamilton has issues running over the curbs on the exit of turn 8, as Lotus went first and second. Down in the drop zone, Senna and Vernge were joining the bottom teams.
Times were changing rapidly as more drivers went on to the faster softer tyre, and the faster drivers started to drift down the timesheets especially Michael Oh Sch...umacher who was having difficulties with his DRS device. Because that is the source of all their power as it works the magic wing device they have he found himself on the fringes of relegation in 16th place as the session ended with Perez on top. Michael thought he may have been safe but an absolutely monumental lap by Kovalainen in the Caterham booted the multiple world champion out of qualifying.
Off in to Q2 we go and it was Felipe Massa first out of the box onto the track only to be beaten shortly by One-Stop Perez and then in turn by Raikkonen and finally Lewis took a larger lead by half a second, which in the current age separated have the qualifiers in Q1. The five tenth was significantly reduced by Nico Rosberg to a mere hundredth of a second the rest of the former first division filed in behind the two silvery cars in front.At this point the BBC online text commentary resorted to the internet phenomena of 'LOLSpeak' as they asked if Massa could escape Q2 for 'teh' time - it wouldn't be surprise if he was relegated.
As time was running out in the session, although I'm sure a few minutes went missing from the recording so things may have happened but I didn't see them. The pressure was now on Ferrari once more as both cars were close to being booted out of the session. As both Di Resta and Ricciardo drove very strong laps to get into the top ten, impressive considering both Torro Ross and Force India have been the slowest of the mid-field teams. One of the Ferraris would escape the drop zone and it wouldn't be teh Massa as Fernando was building up to his fastest lap of the session which would move him up to fourth knocking Raikkonen into relegation. The session had one none-runner as Maldonado encountered technical difficulties.
There were only ten drivers remaining without one Ferrari, one Mercedes and one Lotus - replaced by a Sauber, a Force India and a Torro Rosso. It was the two McLaren and Red Bull cars that decided to go for two runs and entered the track first with Red Bull running on scrubbed tyres on the first run vs McLaren on a new set. Inevitably it was the two McLarens who went fastest on the fresher rubber ahead of the blue machines. The other drivers sat in the garage waiting for the end of the session for a single fast run.
Rosberg led the final runs but only managed a fourth position, as the Red Bull drivers on new tyres this time round went first and second with the German bloke on pole once more. Ricciardo came close to beating Rosberg into 5th place just over a tenth behind, and less than tenth ahead of the Lotus of Romain Grosean. One-Stop Perez was the last of the drivers who were to set a lap, as both Paul Di Resta and Fernando Alonso failed to set a time - well looks like people are going to get penalty points then. This left the two McLaren drivers on track trying make it four consecutive Mercedes powered pole positions, Button aborted his lap before completing it. The only remaining challenger to the Bahrain pole position was the final McLaren of Hamilton, who came close, but only managed to be within 0.098s of the Red Bull so Sebastien was back where he spent most of 2011 - on pole, I doubt however that the race will be an easy drive to the flag as it has been in the past somehow, it'll be a very different situation indeed.
The bonus points winners
Today's session, despite being in truncated highlight form did contain some impressive performances and that is what the bonus point system is designed to reward.
10pts - Heikki Kovalainen - for getting out of Q1 with a time that was only a second from the overall pole in a Caterham
8pts - Daniel Riccardo - in the slowest of the mid-field teams dragging the car up into the top ten while the other car was also beaten by Heikki.
6pts - Paul Di Resta - similar story to Daniel including that Force India didn't run FP2 so were behind on setup so strong job
5pts - Sebastien Vettel - welcome back to the pole Vettel and here are some points for the achievement
4pts - Charles Pic - for being the winner of the back division as they pretty much are in their own mini-race with HRT over who gets to be last
3pts - Teh Massa - you beat Fernando in one session this season in Q1, here are some points for you to
2pts - Pedro De La Rosa - beating something that isn't another HRT on pace, two points for you for that
1pt. - Fernando Alonso - Has to get a point for the drift through turn 10 shown on in final practice awesome.
The penalty points winners
Despite Jean Eric-Vergne ignoring a red light in the pit lane directing him into the weighbridge at the end of Q1, he escapes a penalty having only being reprimanded for the incident. So we move straight onto the penalty points table and the winners are as follows.
- Fernando Alonso - For not running in the final session of qualifying
- Paul Di Resta - For also not running in the final session of qualifying
- Jason Plato - I know it wasn't qualifying or even this week, but I caught up on the tape and Jason is presently driving like a pillock and gains this penalty point.
Looking to Tomorrow
Bahrain doesn't have a tradition of providing entertaining racing, the former layout was a complete failure as a racing circuit. But with the current regulations, and the new fangled DRS device could make things very different this time around, combined with the fact that the cars are much closer on pace than they have been since 2008, the last time regulations have remained virtually stable for a few seasons. If we put those two variables together the tide of tedium could be reversed - I would draw parallels to the GP2 race but it SKY have taken control of that sadly enough so once more into the unknown on that front.
I'd imagine the winner will come from the top two rows possibly add Nico Rosberg into the equation at a push as this group should pull away from Ricciardo and the cars behind - I don't expect to see the train of cars we saw last week in China. But on the other side to that there may be consistent racing action across the entire race rather than the final 10 laps instead. There is also the prospect of Oh Sch....umacher coming from the back of the grid - we know the car is quicker than the cars around him so points are still on the cards there. This could also be first points scoring race for Teh Massa who is the only driver except the bottom six on no points but from 14th in a difficult car it seems a little unlikely.
Due to the events of tomorrow the report may be delayed because my rehearsal time does take priority above and beyond all else. If I can catch a stream before I leave the house then everything will be ok but more likely I'll have to wait until the BBC upload the highlights onto iPlayer probably at 7pm so the write up can only begin around 9pm so it might be postponed till Monday if the file takes too long to upload onto the iPlayer service. So until then this is farewell from the blog.
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