Although the session was broadcast almost 12hrs ago - well by the time this is completed that figure will have been significantly surpassed, it is time to start the post. While this post is beginning other things thrashing round in the rumour mill in some facets have been drawing to a close. Starting off there is the matter of the transfer between Force India to Sauber for Nico Hulkenberg, but Sky have suggested today that this deal is in no way completed which possibly throws a branch of hope back to Kamui who's seat is up for contest. A second thought of the day was quashed almost as soon as it was raised - although it was claimed had been circulating for a while, but Blog HQ is perpetually out of the loop anyway. The idea was that the Lotus team were going to change hands to being controlled by Proton - the Malaysian manufacturer. The matter of the ownership of Lotus has been a contentious issue for a while - leading to Caterham not being called Lotus for this season, and Renault-Squadron taking over as being the Lotus team.
Dialling things back for the session this morning - yes it was this morning when it was still light outside and there was still snow on the ground from yesterday. Indeed blog HQ encountered the first snow-fall of the oncoming bleak winter - another signal that the off season is waiting darkly in the wings, never a pleasant phase of the year, not that many part of the year are pleasant to start off with, but that is life. Quite the contrary underneath the Indian sun where we were treated to another illustration of the reformatted order at this end of the season. For the third consecutive race weekend in a row the line up on the front row features the same pair of drivers - the nature of the track and the car differences acted to sort the front rows into comparative team order. This demonstrates that the driver has as smaller impact on lap time than the car they have been provided with. So this is how things played out before breakfast, whatever that is.
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| Image credit to F1Fanatic.co.uk |
Before the first cars took to the track we were treated to the vast aerial shots of the track, looking at the scale of some of the features - the monolithic back straight, and arcing circle turn section dominating the proceedings. We saw that there had been some changes to the track - replacing some of the grass on the outside of the track with more tarmac. Not a decision that sits too well with blog HQ, yes having tarmac as a run-off zone keeps cars in the race after spinning off - but there needs to be a buffer at the edge of the track. This means that running wide on exits will not be an advantage, as it is now, it should force drivers to take more care.
The first drivers to take to the circuit were from the local team - getting the publicity shots in early as their weekend pace by this point suggested that making it through into the top ten might be a little difficult. Naturally they set the top two times - which would have made a decent screen-saver back at their HQ, because it wasn't going to last too long. To spoil the promotional images for the Force India team was the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen, and One-Stop Perez before the main runners took to the circuit. In this early stage of proceedings the likes of McLaren and Red Bull were sitting in the garage biding their time, because due to the lack of running on the track during the year, the surface starts off dusty and slippery. So the lead runners waited for the others to clean things up. A demonstration of track conditions was performed by Felipe Massa, using a little too much of the dusty run-off after the penultimate corner. The Ferrari performed a half spin staying well away from the barriers but ruined all four tyres in the process.
Vettel turned up on his first lap and took the lead of the session, highlighting the amount domination that the German bloke has at the moment, but in this first session the concern is over the battle for relegation at the far end of the field. The traditional members of the relegation party were all in attendance in the bottom seven spaces, and the remaining position was fluctuating rapidly as each new time passed it to the next driver in line. One more it fell to a duel between the two Toro Rosso drivers, who despite performing well in recent races, still struggled in qualifying, compounded by the fact that their immediate rivals - Williams were doing well. In this internal competition, the regular result won out once more as Ricciardo put a time in at the death of the session to knock his team-mate Vergne out. Also on his final lap, Heikki was having a less successful time spinning into the gravel on the exit of the circle turn at the back of the track.
Oddly the green light for the second phase of the session was activated before a truck had got round to the point where Heikki's car was trapped in the gravel, so there was some yellow flags left out on the out laps. A flurry of mid-field runners were the first to take to the track - including the Force India drivers, but this time there were no promotional images of the cars at the top of the timesheets, because it was Sauber who set the opening time with Kobayashi. Hulkenberg quickly re-addressed the balance to go quickest. With all remaining drivers leaving the pit lane, it wasn't long before the Red Bull team locked out the front row once more with Alonso and Button on the other edge of the top five. There were slight difficulties for both Hamilton and Grosjean in the first of the chicanes - getting loose on turn in and cutting across the apex.
In this session the battle to be promoted through into the final phase was significantly more intense, a couple of tenths could cost several positions - considering several contenders were all within a tenth crossing the boundary for relegation. Initially there were some surprising characters sitting outside the top ten - including Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Romain Grosjean. To illustrate how close things were, there was only 0.001s between Button and Hamilton to decide who finished closest to the Red Bull team out front. Late laps from Maldonado, Perez and Rosberg proved pivotal, dropping Grosjean, Hulkenberg and Senna out of the session. While at the front the domination continued.
With only ten minutes on the clock and ten contenders competing in the final phase of qualifying the result seemed like a forgone conclusion - along with the remaining races of the season, nevermind this weekend. Four drivers opened the session with the remainder hiding in pit lane for now, of the four Vettel was the only one not complete a time, running off at turn five and abandoning the lap. The Red Bull domination was passed onto Webber who went fastest ahead of Alonso and Hamilton. Rosberg did take to the track but only completed a installation lap before pitting - not to return and therefore earning an instant penalty point for laziness.
That left nine drivers out on track to decide the pole position, and the battle was only ever going to have one victor, a certain German bloke in a blue car took the lead with his second effort. Webber was unable to take the fight back to his team-mate after locking a wheel and running wide through turn three, while Button claimed the final place on the podium - well temporarily anyway before Hamilton took that place. Maintaining the team by team structure both Ferraris lined up 5th and 6th, Massa taking his contracted position behind Alonso. Raikkonen finished 7th, the default position for Lotus behind the main teams, the final two runners of the session were Perez in 8th and Maldonado in 9th. Where Rosberg without running will line up 10th.
The Bonus Points Championship points winners
The session may have been an undiluted demonstration of where individual cars are running in relation to each other, meaning that individual performances were smothered by the internal car pace they are handed. But despite that points do need to be handed out and they are as follows.
- 10pts - One-Stop Perez - For out performing the car, and making it into the top ten when the other Sauber almost went out in Q1
- 8pts - Pastor Maldonado - Another interesting entry into the top ten on a strong day for Williams
- 6pts - Vitaly Petrov - Out qualifying his faster team-mate, a rare achievement deserves points
- 5pts - Narain Karthikeyan - For not being last on the grid for his home race in India
- 4pts - Sebastien Vettel - Because it has been a whole lot of dominance so far
- 3pts - Nico Rosberg - For being quick compared to the car pace in Q2
- 2pts - Buddh Circuit - For being a Tilke track that doesn't inspire despair and boredom
- 1pt - Felipe Massa - He may not be allowed to beat Alonso but can have a point for the effort.
The Penalty Points Series
As there were no official penalties this weekend coming out of qualifying - we haven't even got any technical penalties to cause any changes to the order from the session. Something which an anomaly compared to all season has only occurred at two other races, we shall move onto the penalty points series which only receives two additional entries today.
- Nico Rosberg - For not bothering with the final part of qualifying and earns one penalty point
- Tarmac run-off - Stop making life too easy at the edge of the track, just stop it
Looking not too far into the future
It is a little odd when there is less time between now and the start of the race, and this post will only exist during the night when no-one will actually be near the internet to witness it. Does sort of render the whole thing rather pointless - but most things in life usually are, especially in this corner of the internet, talking to myself in an endless text box but oh well.. The Indian GP in a few hours could be a very interesting event, especially on the opening lap, with the long straights early in the lap combined with the extra wide braking zones. All adding up for a recipe for potential damage and mayhem, we lost some carbon fibre in turn three on the opening event for the track.
The dual DRS zones could allow the racing to continue on for the remainder of the race, as questions are remaining when considering the tyre degradation and amount of pit-stops needed during the race is a great unknown. The second of the zones has even been lengthened for this second running of the race, in an effort to improve the entertainment and spectacle of the race. Because the second half of the lap isn't really geared for overtaking, more for driving enjoyment, Hamilton tried to make a pass in this section and only ended up improving his relationship with Massa by hitting him in turn 5. As the track has had a year to settle, and the lines are less dusty things may be more exciting this time and to warrant being awake that early, one can only hope.
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