Well well well, that certainly was an interesting session a session that more flawed sleep was intending to remove from my day, but I put an end to that plan fairly successfully although it did cancel out the idea of catching FP3. Well I can't have everything, in fact if we were to look into the set of things I can have here at Blog HQ it would be a rather small set of things indeed bordering on an empty set but that is a rant for another day and another location that isn't this corner of the internet, there are other places for that. Anyway there was a qualifying event this afternoon - one advantage of having the coverage on the BBC in the European time zone is that I can start writing this a little earlier and it should be done before the end of the day, well things would be on schedule if I wasn't such a lazy person but because I am it is nearly 5pm now and I'm only a few lines through.
And the three sessions did provide some strange results compared with, well I was going to bring the formbook back into things but that was rejected on many occasions this season as the grid have had a habit of making up the running order as they go along. Which frankly is a wonderful idea, from Saubers almost winning in Malaysia to double Lotus podiums in Bahrain leading to a very entertaining season in prospect and from the grid line up after what was presented to the world this afternoon is going to make tomorrow's race no different. While I shall be away for the day pottering around at some car thingy the iPlayer will be taking care of the coverage upon my return to therefore the posting will be even later than this one is going to turn out to be. So on that note I should better get on with today's update.
Qualifying
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| picture from F1Fanatic.co.uk |
So I shall move swiftly on to Q1 and ready for the first cars to hit the track, in theory anyway - the timer signified the start of the session and the green light illuminated at the end of pit lane but no-one seemed to notice. There was a whole empty track where times could be set unimpeded and without the threat of traffic in the session where the highest quantity of cars would be competing. But still no-one decided it was a good idea to have a go, but on a lighter note it does mean that I haven't had to write anything for the first five minutes because nothing happened at all. However after the prolonged wait when no-one wanted to play it was Scotland's Paul Di Resta who breeched the implied picket line and took to the track, and once that one car left the pit lane everyone else started to follow suit. Except Red Bull who decided the garage was much more comfortable and stayed there for a bit longer.
Paul's first flying lap was severely compromised by encountering a Marrusia coming into the final chicane complex with Timo Glock at the wheel - this harmed his lap time but there was enough of the session left to set a better time. Leaving Alonso a free run at the first position which he suitably claimed in front of the home crowd. The Spaniards reign lasted only a couple of minutes before Hamilton defeated his time while One-stop Perez found himself in second, running for FC Sauber due to their connections with the Chelsea football team. Whatever football is. At this point Red Bull still didn't want to play - opting to avoid using the harder tyres by saving them for the race - leaving their runs on the softer tyres to the end of the section of qualifying.
All the teams had to switch to the softer tyres, due to the time difference between the two compounds, effectively rendering the laps on the harder tyre useless. As the time was running out the usual suspect were trapped in the drop zone, along with the two Red Bull cars who just left the pit lane for a single run. Suddenly the timing board started to shuffle wildly as the mid-field cars were swapping places consistently and somewhere in the melee Pastor Maldonado for Williams found himself fastest ahead of Raikkonen while his team-mate was lingering down in the drop zone having lost a place to Vergne. On his final lap, Senna was only 0.085s outside making it through at the end of the second sector, but in trying to find the last tenth he used to much curb in turn 12 and span into the gravel cementing his relegation at the end of Q1.
Seven cars lighter we entered the second session, and the same pattern of events that took place in the first session was appearing again, as no-one wanted to leave the garage, one wonders what they are feeding them in there because it must be very compelling to stay in there. Several minutes passed and it was a similar story as Force India were the first ones to take to the track followed by FC Sauber. Their opening laps were soon defeated by Nico Rosberg's Mercedes using more than the normally recommended amount of curbing in the final chicane getting quite a lot air under the car. Soon after that Hamilton moved his car to the front considerably ahead of everyone else - so far he returned to the garage and got out the McLaren. This session it was the Lotus team who were leaving it close to the end hiding in the pitlane.
With only two minutes left on the timer, timing was madness - every car that crossed the line submitted a time that was good enough to make it into the top ten shuffling the positions constantly. The gap from 3rd fastest down to 12th was covered by a matter of tenths, Massa and Vettel were running on the exact same time - a change of a tenth of a second would gain several positions. A problem that caught Webber out, who was sitting in the pit lane, where most of the cars have been all day - thinking he was safe and slipped down to 12th. While Massa on what would appear on the surface a reasonable time, left him at the very back of the pack in 17th. Another driver that was swept out of the top 10 and into the relegation zone was the 2011 bonus points world champion Jenson Button who was complaining mostly about understeer, which as shown in the track video does become a problem on several corners. Back at the front end and it was the Venezuelan Maldonado who took the fastest time having been beaten in Q1 by Hamilton reaching the top spot in the second session.
Then we only had ten remaining drivers, well it would have been 10 but Kamui Kobayashi in the FC Sauber car encountered technical difficulties at the end of the Q2 session, pulling off on the exit of turn three, so he couldn't start this final session. However Vettel could and he was waiting at the end of the pit lane before the lights turned green, when we have had two sessions with drivers not wanting to leave the garages now we had on wanting to start before the green. But the German left the pit lane did an out lap and returned to the pit lane. Next up on track was the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton who actually completed a lap the only driver to do so and obviously took the top step, Oh Sch....umacher took to the track but pulled straight into the garage after an outlap.
It got all quiet on track after Hamilton's time when no-one wanted to really do anything - here we were in the fastest session of the entire day and no-one wanted to play - I could sense penalty points being handed out left right and centre at this rate for not competing. But Nico Rosberg left the lane and headed to the track, with the time sheet being so populated at the time he claimed a virtually guaranteed second place. Finally with only enough time for one more run in the session some drivers actually decided to have a go - headed by a very strong effort by Fernando Alonso to go fastest with a quick time. the two Lotus drivers filed in behind the Ferrari in second and third. More were on flying laps and there seemed to be some more speed in that Williams in the hands of Pastor Maldonado as he took the lead away from the local driver probably not a good sign for Pastor. The last Williams driver who scored a pole position was rapidly replaced, oddly enough by the Venezuelan, but that problem wasn't to come to fruition as his time was beaten too. This time by Lewis Hamilton who scored another pole position by a more than comfortable margin considering how close it was in Q2.
So we end up with Hamilton on pole - for now - because he pulled over on the return to the pit lane due to lack of fuel, stopping the car before it ran out to leave enough for the FIA to sample to check for irregularities in scrutineering. So well await any decision on that for now, until then, he leads from Maldonado, Alonso and Grosjean with Raikkonen in 5th. Perez and Rosberg were the last of the drivers in the top ten to set a time, while Oh Sch...umacher and Vettel opted not to take a lap and therefore earn penalty points.
Bonus points championship
Speaking of points it is time to release the bonus points winners from this qualifying session
10pts - Pastor Maldonado: Almost (and still might) claimed pole position in a mid-field car and for a pay driver is a sizeable achievement
8pts - Vitaly Petrov - Has to have points for out-qualifying Heikki in the Caterham because that doesn't happen very often
6pts - Lewis Hamilton - For claiming pole and being the only one to actually take part in the early phase of final qualifying
5pts - Fernando Alonso - Making third in a car which isn't on the pace 14 places ahead of Teh Massa
4pts - Charles Pic - for out-qualifying his experienced team-mate Timo Glock
3pts - Paul Di Resta - for encouraging the drivers to actually take part in the session at the beginning
2pts - Lotus GP - Points for consistency having both drivers no farther than two tenths apart in all sessions
1pt - Nico Rosberg - Gets a point for the highest jump across the chicane curbs
Penalty Points Championship
While an incident in final practice in the morning involving Oh Sch....umacher and Hamilton only resulted in a reprimand and nothing imposed during qualifying we move straight onto the penalty points series where there are some points to be distributed as follows.
- Sebastien Vettel - for not bothering in Q3
- Michael Oh Sch....umacher - also for not entering Q3
The grid is looking as enthralling as ever and with the cars in the order they are on the run down to the first corner it should be an exciting race, which is nice considering that Barcelona doesn't often throw up the most interesting of races often ending up rather processional. So hopefully this time will be very different as we have cars out of position in terms of Button, Webber and Teh Massa all the way down in 17th. That combined with the vast difference in the speed yielded by the two tyre compounds offers all the ingredients for a very good race,
But the coverage here at Blog HQ is going to be delayed due to other events going on this weekend, eventually one of these events will go uninterrupted and possibly the first chance of that will be at the following race a fortnight away from here. So until the post is released tomorrow or Monday this is farewell from everyone here - well it shall only ever be just me - at Blog HQ.
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