Well that was closer than we expected it to be, not just between the two cars on the front row but between those in the immediate chasing pack. In two of the three practice sessions leading up to qualifying there was a different team sitting at the very top of the time-sheets. This lead to many confused faces down the pit lane - was this going to be a hiccup in the continuous stream of qualifying dominance. What was more interesting was that for the first time this year there was the slightest hint that something that wasn't powered by a German engine unit might have a chance of sitting at the very front of the grid. The immediate threat appeared to come from Ferrari of all places, after suffering a turbulent year which involved Dominicali and more recently Di Montezemelo parting company. One thing that came through in the commentary was the problem of the super-soft tyre compound, the same compound that saw Mercedes lose out to Williams in Austria qualifying. Perhaps the all conquering and all dominant team doesn't like that particular compound, citing issues regarding rear tyre wear as a possible explanation. But what we do know is that in the race, that car can often turn into a very different animal as Austria demonstrated when Mercedes more than overturned the deficit on the Sunday.
Today was also the first major session with the first tier of radio restrictions in place, and I'm not sure if it was a coincidence, or a function of the track being challenging and 'green' after overnight rainfall. But everyone seemed a little tentative - especially in Q1. Normally on street circuits you'll see cars running millimetres from the walls - brushing the paint off the tyre sidewalls, but today there was a lot less of that sort of thing. Although it has to be said that even if it did happen the camera director would have missed it - as he/she did with most things today. Surely the drivers don't need the teams to tell them how close to get to the walls and what apex speeds to take to maximise the exit points - but it did seem as if they were leaving a little more room for error, of course there were a couple leaving less room than others...
Qualifying
As soon as any session starts in Singapore we are treated to the almost obligatory helicopter images of the city at night, with all it's fancy multi-story hotels and architectural wonders. All of which has got nothing on this part of the world - we have two wind turbines on our skyline... none of which work most of the time, but they are there mostly for decoration. Q1 opened with a lot of drivers struggling, particularly on the brakes - Nico Rosberg locked up and went down the escape road at turn five... the German found reverse and got on with things. A little reminiscent of Monaco - except without pole position being on the line and the raft of conspiracy theories after the fact. I'd like to be able to tell you who was having difficulties elsewhere on the lap, but the director didn't feel inclined to show us - there were some incredibly useful images of people in the pit lane sitting around while the cars were on track.
One car even vanished across the turn 1-3 complex in a cloud of tyre smoke from a locked front - were we ever shown who was responsible...nope. Thus began the investigation into the mystery of the suspicious cloud - evidence seemed thin on the ground as a train of cars left shot before the cloud appeared. But a few minutes later there was a break in the case, down another escape road on the other side of the track was the Lotus of Romain Grosjean with braking difficulties... could this be the source of the cloud... who knows but for the time being it was out best guess.
I suppose qualifying is all about lap times and making sure yours is better than everyone else's - not that you are allowed to know the other times anymore. For a while it was Bottas in the lead before Hamilton claimed that position normally this would be the end of things - a Mercedes hits the front and no-one can do anything else about it. But due to the characteristics of the tyres and the track - there was over a two second pace difference between the softs and the super-softs. This meant that everyone had to in reality make the change or risk being caught out - conventionally we'd just see all of the contenders to set improved times but stay in the same relative positions... not this time. The super-softs metamorphosed the Ferrari into something much faster, and something Raikkonen enjoyed - and thus the Finn went fastest. Alonso claimed second place, and Hamilton... well the Mercedes driver could only manage third... Rosberg was 6th. The world had gone mad... but the pleasantly intriguing sort of mad... not the straight jackets and padded cells variety (maybe tomorrow for that).
Q2
Off into the second phase of qualifying, and the smaller on track population would probably be good news for Vettel, who seemed displeased with Kvyat not moving off the racing line in the first part. As an aside regarding the German bloke - Christian Horner said in an interview that Vettel was handling the difficult season well, and wasn't getting frustrated or irate... I think that Mr Horner needs to listen to some of Sebastian's team radio in earlier races... he was fairly frustrated in some of those... Back to the action now and Ferrari were at it again, this time Alonso lead Raikkonen by mere thousandths of a second, only for Hamilton to go a few thousandths quicker than the pair of them. The margins between drivers was impossibly small - 0.26s covered the top five in the early phase of the session.
Just like in Q1 the camera director appeared to be taking a vacation because there were a couple of yellow flag alerts published on the screen - but no idea who or what caused them. Yes we don't turn on the TV just to see things crash into other things - but it would be nice to see who was having difficulties, and what the causes and contributing factors are... but nope. Anyway Willams initially looked vulnerable after completing their first runs on used tyres, setting times that were only good enough for relegation - along with both Force Indias and Esteban Gutierrez in the Sauber. The top four drivers elected not to go out again assuming that fresh tyres and track evolution would not give the opposition enough of an advantage to relegate them.
The crew on Daniel Ricciardo's pitwall must have thought that call was a little risky when the first car to cross the line whilst using another set bumped them down a position. If the rest of the challengers replicated Massa's pace then Ricciardo would be out of the session. Luckily for him, they weren't fast enough, Kyvat and Magnussen made it through - knocking Vergne and Hulkenberg out and Jenson Button came tantalisingly close to making it into Q3. Jenson was only 17 milliseconds away from promotion but ended up in 11th place. The session ended with Nico Rosberg putting in an very quick time to go fastest... an ominous sign of things to come perhaps...
Q1
The final and all important pole position shootout and cue more artistic aerial views of the Marina bay circuit with all it's nocturnal splendour on display. Still no sign of any malfunctioning windmills, score one to Blog HQ. The first series of laps saw Felipe Massa setting the early pace, less than a tenth of a second clear of Daniel Ricciardo in second and the two Ferraris along with Vettel a tiny fraction behind that. 0.16s covered the top five cars in an immensely tight final session - yet Mercedes were languishing down in 6th in 7th. I think qualifying should have ended there and then - think of the race that would have generated tomorrow...
Alas the session went on and thus began the final runs, which unfortunately were to be completed without one of the major contenders. Kimi Raikkonen was recalled to the pits on his outlap after a technical problem, the Finn seemed a lot calmer about the technical difficulties than Romain Grosjean had in Q2. The Frenchman was apoplectic over the radio about the engine cutting out and malfunctioning. But we still had a potential fight for pole position between Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes - something we haven't been treated two in a very long time, even Austria didn't have this many contenders. Ricciardo set the initial benchmark time - claiming a provisional pole position away from Massa. The crowd cheer was enormous when the Australian held the top spot. Nico Rosberg spoiled that party chipping out a two tenth margin over the Red Bull driver. So Mercedes on pole again as Vettel, Alonso, Massa and Bottas were unable to beat Rosbergs time, this only left Hamilton... Lewis made a small mistake in the first corner, locking an inside wheel but over the course of the lap kept in touch with his team-mate's time. As Hamilton rounded the final corner and crossed the line he stole pole position by only 0.007s - a ridiculously small margin. In a day when radio communications were the initial taking point it is only fair that the session was ended with a radio message. Rosberg was informed of the final results and the time difference, to which he merely replied "DAMN IT"...oh it is going to be fun tomorrow.
The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners
Fear not I am keeping track of these points, there is a spreadsheet with some VBA code that when the time comes will print out the HTML needed to update the online table. As for today, that was the closest session this season, and barring that time in '97 when Schumacher, Villeneuve and Frentzen all set the same time down to the millisecond - one of the closest in a very long time. That does make scoring this session very difficult, but here are the winners:
- 10pts - Kimi Raikkonen - For once that is the pace we have waited to see, fastest in Q1 and pushing Alonso... until the car broke down again
- 8pts - Felipe Massa - After spending much of 2014 in Bottas' shadow the Brazilian was the dominant Williams today and was one pole... for a bit
- 6pts - Kevin Magnussen - On a track he has never seen before to make it into the top ten ahead of Jenson is a strong acheivement
- 5pts - Jules Bianchi - Utterly demolished the lower division, in a day when margins have been so tight a one second gap over Kamui is mighty.
- 4pts - Daniil Kvyat - Once again the rookie driver is leading the mid-field, admittedly Vergne may be demotivated, but he is ahead of Button and both of the Force India cars as well.
- 3pts - Hamilton/Rosberg - Putting them on the same line is asking for another fight but 0.007s is amazing consistency between team-mates
- 2pts - Romain Grosjean - Gets two points for having the best rant of the day about the Renault engine... very little PR filtering going on there.
- 1pt - Squadron Leader Heidfeld - Nick gets the final point for walking away from a huge accident in the debut Formula E race in China, and for the calmest possible interview afterwards considering he was taken out by a driver he shares a car with in endurance races.
The Penalty Points Series
There is also a spreadsheet for this too, but considering that is was a calm and entertaining qualifying session there should be little to add to that spreadsheet this evening. Agreed little does need to be done, but there are a couple of points that do need to be taken care of.
- The Camera Director - Not a particularly good job today from the person responsible, I would like to know why a driver set a slower time than expected and why those yellow flags were out if you don't mind.
- Nicholas Prost - The other half of the Heidfeld incident, Nicholas was going to lose the lead of the race on the approach to the final corner of the final lap. So the Frenchman made a last second blocking move and crashed into the side of Heidfeld's car. It was a very rash and foolish move which broke Heidfeld's front suspension and launching the car over the curbs at the inside of the corner. The car flew upside down into the barrier and tumbled through the air before landing the wrong way up. Prost had the incredulity post race to blame the German for making an 'impossible move' on a corner where you can't pass apparently. The same corner where Takuma Sato was able to drive two wide with another car without making any contact...
Looking to Tomorrow
The race is the longest event of the season, closing in on the two hour maximum time limit, and in every one of those races there has been at least one safety car deployment. Anything can and will happen on the streets of Singapore which makes the race tomorrow look like an enticing prospect even in the years of Vettel domination. In 2013 when Sebastian had a two second a lap advantage the race was still enjoyable because of the battles further behind. But this season those battles can take place at the very front of the grid between team-mates who are not afraid of pushing each other out of the way. And once again waiting in the wings for something to go wrong is Daniel Ricciardo - it is set up wonderfully once more for a fantastic race. Bring it on.
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