One session remains, one day of competition to decide the title, and first blood was emphatically drawn in the final part of qualifying today - all through free practice (barring FP3) and most of qualifying the form was sitting on one side of the Mercedes garage. But form is only there to be broken and when the pressure was on and the times truly mattered that pendulum swung in the opposite direction and almost allowed a couple of drivers to join the party at the front of the grid. The tension and those sharp glances across the press conference table have set up tomorrow's race to be one of great expectations, but one that could easily end up being processional because the grid positions as they are would suit the championship leader right down to the ground. So in that sense there is no real reason to push for the win and risk losing everything for the glory of winning the finale race. But racing drivers have never been rational people.
Qualifying
For the first time in the past couple of races the grid was back up to 20 cars with the return of Caterham through their crowd-funding campaign plus whoever stumped up the rest of the cash. To cement their re-emergence into the paddock for this finale it was their rookie driver who took to the circuit first, and managed to avoid crashing into the wall in the underground pit-lane. I still find it impressive that in the many years the Abu Dhabi circuit has been in use, no-one has actually hit that barrier. Will Stevens emerged from the tunnel with the Force India of Sergio Perez - and of the pair it was no great surprise to learn that the Mexican ended up with the faster time.
The rest of the drivers began to filter out the pits, and while soft tyres seemed to be the order of the day Williams were defying convention and sticking to the harder of the two options. With a degree of inevitability a brace of Mercedes powered cars breezed their way to the very top of the time sheet. Rosberg on the softest tyres was fastest ahead of Bottas on the slightly less soft compound, the difference between the two being over a second. Some of that being down to the tyres, the rest down to the fact that Nico has a much faster car, if not the fastest car. But there was on contender who could argue with that sentiment, and did vehemently and that was Lewis Hamilton - just finding a tenth over his German team-mate.
As this was Q1, the attention is focussed on the bottom of the grid - due to Caterham's return five cars were to be relegated in Q1 and Q2. Naturally Caterham would be firmly bedded into the relegation zone - Kamui retaining a safe gap to Stevens. But Will was able to stay within 0.5s which is quite impressive considering he was almost three seconds slower in FP1. Sauber and Lotus were fighting over the honour of avoiding spending the rest of the session sitting on the sidelines. For a brief period of time Ferrari was in the bottom 5, but easily moved up the grid, more so Raikkonen as Fernando lost some time behind Will Stevens in the final two corners. As each of the Sauber and Lotus drivers crossed the line they moved up into 15th place - safe for a few seconds. Vergne was eventually shuffled down into the equation but leapt up into 14th. The penultimate car to cross the line was Adrian Sutil for Sauber - to escape relegation, Grosjean was next but lost time in the final sector and lost out by 0.022s.
Q2
It was Mercedes power once again that found its way to the top of the tree in the opening minutes of Q2 - as Felipe Massa set the benchmark time on a used set of super-soft tyres. As much as we would like to see something other than a Mercedes factory car sitting at the top, it is a little unlikely to expect the Williams to hold back the main team. So Hamilton immediately responded and set a 1:40.990 - many, many tenths clear of anyone else. Rosberg in the sister car only managed a 1:53 - 13 seconds slower than the Briton, because Nico locked up at the turn 8 chicane and had to take to the run-off area. After the error Rosberg tweaked the brake balance - moving it more rearward from 62% front to 56% on the front, because in the end locking wheels is more Lewis' trait. Nico's second lap was more productive, but he was still more than half a second behind his team-mate. This big gap in lap time left room for Williams to strike, Massa and Bottas taking 2nd and 3rd places ahead of Rosberg.
While McLaren wrestle with an ever increasing driver selection problem, their current pilots were trapped in the relegation zone without setting a lap. Both cars had left the pits but didn't finish a flying lap - although we didn't see it Magnussen reportedly made an error on his lap and decided to abort - possibly a result of flat-spotted tyres. Jenson on the other hand had encountered a far more frustrating problem - the team called him back to the pits, to which Button was justifiably confused and asked if there was a reason to abort his run. It turned out that the team hadn't put enough fuel in the car and he had to pit to top up enough to complete his final runs. With the car refuelled, Jenson was able to set a time and move out of the relegation zone. Magnussen was also able to escape relegation when he returned to the track, but late runs for Kvyat changed that as he took the Dane's place in Q3
Q3
Two sessions done, and two victories for Hamilton - it looked for all the world as if qualifying and ultimately the championship had been decided. But as we have seen on many times before - things can change. Both Mercedes drivers took to the track, Rosberg ahead of Hamilton... just like Monaco... but Abu Dhabi doesn't really present the same opportunities for a well timed yellow flag as the streets of the principality does. Bottas may have set the initial base time for the session, but Rosberg was on stronger form with a stronger car setting the fastest time of the day so far. Hamilton had work to do to catch up with that time - it appeared that he was on track to achieve that objective until the final pair of corners. Lewis ran wide in the penultimate corner and locked up in the final one and lost a lot of time to Nico. Round one goes to the German.
A short interval to change tyres later, and battle was resumed and it was a battle with very little room for error. Because Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas was were only a tenth of a second behind Hamilton, and on the final runs there was a chance that if Mercedes dropped the ball - a few locked wheels here or there - and that front row lockout would be in jeopardy. As in the first phase of Q3, Rosberg was the first of the Mercedes pair to leave the garage, with Hamilton a safe distance further back. Bottas came so close to disrupting the order, only 0.004s behind Hamilton in 3rd place. This meant the fight was between the top two as Massa ended his final effort in 4th place - ending the Williams threat. If Hamilton could knit all his sectors together pole position was possible - but Rosberg was having none of if, moving the goalpost further ahead of the Briton. Lewis had half a second to recover to take pole position - all of the effort in the world wasn't good enough only finding just over a tenth of a second. As a result Nico takes pole for the final race of the season, but his immediate rival is right alongside him, Williams couldn't quite help Nico's championship ambitions... but tomorrow is a whole new day.
The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners
The final qualifying session of the season, and while the FIA have decided to apply double points - here at Blog HQ, more logic prevails because each race is as valuable as all the others.
- 10pts - Daniil Kyvat - Almost out qualified Vettel and well inside the top ten for the Russian
- 8pts - Will Stevens - First ever qualifying session for the rookie, and to be within 0.5s of Kobayashi is reasonably impressive.
- 6pts - Nico Rosberg - After Hamilton lead FP1 and 2, then did the same in qualifying, Rosberg demolished Lewis in the end
- 5pts - Valtteri Bottas - So very close to making it onto the front row and getting in the way of Hamilton's plans
- 4pts - Jenson Button - As McLaren struggle to decide on their drivers, Button once more severely defeats Magnussen
- 3pts - Kimi Raikkonen - It isn't very often the Finn out-qualifies Alonso, but Kimi kept it on track when Alonso missed the chicane in Q3
- 2pts - Daniel Ricciardo - Completely smashed Vettel today despite the German having more qualifying efforts
- 1pt - Stoffel Vandoorne - Another alarmingly dominant display from the Belgian in GP2... tough times for McLaren with his hat in the ring too
The Penalty Points Championship
It has been a while since I did add something to the penalty points table, but here are a couple of additions in the final weekend.
- The FIA - Have to receive a point for developing a framework in which a driver can be handed a 20 place grid penalty on a grid of only 20 cars. Romain Grosjean received four 5-place grid drops for changing engine components. Because Romain qualified in 16th, he will be stuck with a penalty in the race too, as unused grid penalties can't be carried forward in the final race. This system is made to look farcical when Sebastian Vettel replaced the entire power unit and was only hit with a pit-lane start, nothing compared to Grosjean's penalty. The FIA have ordered a special large print version of the rule book just to throw at the Frenchman...
- Bernie Ecclestone - Deserves a penalty point for all of the ludacrous statements he has been issuing in the recent week or so. Claiming that the sport doesn't really need young fans simply because they are not rich enough to fit within the target demographic of the title sponsors... Followed that up with comments that the teams are idiots to slam the double points system as he removed it from 2015.
Tomorrow, the grand finale
This is it, the title decider one race to decide it all - Lewis has an important advantage over Rosberg and enough car pace to be safe in second place even if Nico storms off into the distance. It would take a bizarre set of events to see Rosberg take the title, and bizarre circumstances would make for a very entertaining race. It would take safety car interventions, mechanical difficulties or some on-track altercations to prevent the inevitable. But for some reason I can't really see Lewis holding back and allowing Rosberg an easy victory, and that drive and motivation could in the end be his undoing... Bring it on.
No comments:
Post a Comment