Round 8 - Austria 2015 - Qualifying

Greetings Internet, 

That was far more dynamic than many of the qualifying sessions we have witnessed this season - some of that was down to a slight rain shower that took place in the region of FP3. If only that rainfall had carried forward into qualifying itself. Despite the drying conditions, we were left with what is considered to be a 'green' track, one that was continually improving throughout the session, especially in Q1. Yet somehow, despite all the changes in position and a low grip surface catching a few people out... it is business at usual at the front. It seems as if it pre-ordained that the Mercedes' cars will continually line up in the same position. Even if it looks as if there might be a positional change - circumstances will somehow manifest themselves to prevent that from happening. When the world is complaining that the sport has become broken and boring, it is days like today that make you think that no quantity of spectacle can re-arrange the front row.

Elsewhere the list of penalties has increased as both McLarens are now on 25 place grid drops, both Red Bull cars are on 10 place grid penalties... so across two teams there is a total of 70 dropped places, more than three times the population of the grid... So because of the severity of the number of penalties Alonso, Button and Ricciardo can't fulfil the number of dropped places they have been allocated and thus will be handed additional penalties in the race itself. It is starting to get a little farcical, and we are not even half way through the season to make things worse the really big engine tracks of Spa and Monza are still a few races away, so things are not going to get any better for Honda or Renault. To think that there were calls to increase the engine allocation from four to five power unit components... even that wouldn't help them at this point.

Q1

On to qualifying and as the coverage opened, the scene looked rather wet and enticing - but despite a grey overcast sky and reasonably low air temperature the track had almost completely dry by the time Q1 started. For the first phase of the session drivers took the conservative option of starting on the intermediate tyres as the occasional puddle and damp patch remained making slicks too risky. On the damp surface the grid looked very mixed, and completely against the run of forms - Toro Rosso held an early 1-2, while Mercedes were in the middle of the pack. Then things took another surprising turn when Jenson Button took a stint at the head of the pack... so Renault and Honda powered cars were leading. Alas the early times didn't really matter too much because the track was ready for slicks.

Williams and Fred Nasr were the first ones to move onto the dry tyres - Nasr appeared to be having a tougher time of it as his Sauber was breaking loose at every opportunity. Through the middle sector Fred executed a magnificent save as he hit a damp patch in turn seven. That

same patch caused Will Stevens in the Manor to spin off the circuit into the gravel - there is a certain nostalgic feeling seeing a car having to negotiate a good old fashioned gravel trap... Stevens was able to drag the car back onto the circuit and continue. 

It wasn't long before everyone had made the transition onto the dry tyres as the dry line was wide enough and dry enough to be faster than the intermediates. Which did put an end to the unlikely drivers at the top of the timesheets. as Hamilton made his way to the front, for a while the other Mercedes was in the relegation zone, with Vettel only one place further forward. However they effortlessly moved up to the effective front row. Did this mean that normality had resumed... well almost - barring Kimi Raikkonen who was still in the relegation zone. As time ticked away Raikkonen's prospects became ever bleaker and inexplicably in the end found him self relegated from qualifying. Kimi and Ferrari had no answer to why he was over ten places behind his team-mate and unable to make it into Q2 without any diagnosed technical faults on the car. Joining Raikkonen was Perez, Button and the two Manor cars.

Q2

The track was completely dry by this point, with the exception of the occasional patch offline but the astroturf and run-off areas remained damp, so it was certainly advisable to remain on track. In the second part of qualifying is was recent Le Mans winner Hulkenberg who set the early pace (at least Sky recognised that Earl Bamber and Nick Tandy were also in the Le Mans 919 that took the victory - especially Tandy who's nighttime stint was incredibly quick). It was Rosberg who once more seemed to have the upper hand at Mercedes and took a provisional Q2 pole... not that pole is up for grabs in Q2. Hamilton remained a few tenths slower and at risk from an attack from Vettel if this form continued into the final phase of qualifying. 

Things were looking reasonably difficult for Renault powered cars, but with only

a few minutes remaining three of the four cars were inside the top ten - Mad Max Verstappen the best placed. Ricciardo on the other hand was struggling and was the worst placed of the home branded teams. Carlos Sainz Jnr was the next of the Red Bull coloured machines to find himself inside the relegation zone as Fred Nasr promoted his Sauber well into the top ten as the times started to tumble in the final minutes of the session. Kvyat came close to joining the relegation party as Marcus Ericsson almost demoted the Russian and his omnipresent death stare into 11th place. Also in relegation was Sebastian Vettel, were we to see two Ferraris starting out of position as the German was yet to set a time. But Vettel came out of the garage and immediately went fastest... just making it look rather easy. The hope of a inter-team pole battle remained... but with the last laps of the session Mercedes reclaimed that Q2 front row, putting some distance between themselves and everyone else in the process...

Q3 

At this point in the day the track was almost back up to full speed, with rubber laid down after is was washed way by the rains earlier in the day. There was only a 30% chance of more rain which inevitably never materialised, and still hasn't through the GP2 race - which was magnificent even in the dry. With Ricciardo relegated only Hamilton and Rosberg have managed to reach Q3 in each of the races this season. Of the pairing Nico Rosberg was the first to set a lap time, one that was comfortably faster than anyone else - Hamilton tried his best to wrestle provisional pole from his team-mate but fell almost half a second short. This left him vulnerable to the threat of Vettel and both Williams, Massa, Bottas and Vettel came close to splitting the Mercedes 1-2 but could only get within a tenth of Hamilton. A gap formed between the top five and everyone else led by Hulkenberg in 6th - but the Force India was running used tyres and had more pace left in the car for the second run. Only nine cars were to take part in the final part of Q3 as Romain Grosjean encountered mechanical difficulties for Lotus... whether this will result in yet another penalty remains to be seen.

Time for the second run and it became clear that it was the middle sector that was costing Hamilton time in relation to Rosberg's current pole time. In the minute or so between the runs Lewis had been able to figure out how to solve whatever issues that were costing him time in the middle sector. The result was a much faster lap time - while Rosberg had moved the goal post a further two tenths further up the road, Lewis found two tenths on top of this to take the provisional pole position away. Both drivers had one more lap to defend or steal the top spot. For some reason that final lap went a bit wrong. From Hamilton's perspective it never really got going because he put a tyre on the while line under braking for turn one and span the car across the painted run-off area. 

Advantage Rosberg in that case, with Lewis out of the picture, the German only had to find a couple of tenths and pole position was his. The deficit was precisely 0.2s and at the conclusion of the middle sector Rosberg had reeled those two tenths in only one sector left, only two corners left. If Nico repeated his sector time from earlier in the session pole was his. But somehow that result wouldn't appease the racing gods - if such a thing did exist - and Rosberg put a wheel on the new Astroturf carpet on the exit of turn 8 and because that carpet was still wet he found himself sliding off in turn 9 ending up in the gravel... So despite everything that took place in qualifying, the same old order remains on the front row. 

The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners

Even if the same names take over the top two places, there were plenty of drivers deserving points following today's session:

• 10pts - Nico Hulkenberg - Just after helping Porsche topple the might of Audi at Le Mans, Nico scores a miraculous 5th place in an undeveloped car
• 8pts - Felipe 'Fred' Nasr - Sauber back in the top ten and for an epic save on the damp track with slicks through turn seven 
• 6pts - Mad Max Verstappen - Easily the fastest of the Red Bull powered cars putting the main team to shame ever so slightly 
• 5pts - Daniil Kvyat - Being one more the lead main Red Bull driver ahead of Ricciardo
• 4pts - Jenson Button - For a brief time the McLaren was the fastest car in qualifying... before being relegated and then handed a 25 place penalty...
• 3pts - Nico Rosberg - Up until those final corner was actually on route to defeat Hamilton in qualifying which used to be the theme of 2014
• 2pts - Will Stevens - Gets a couple of points for being able to extract himself from the gravel, these days you don't get to practice that skill
• 1pt - Felipe Massa - Gets the final point for the delightful interaction he had with Massa Jnr as his son pointed out that he wouldn't get pole... how right he was

• -1pt Kimi Raikkonen - That was a bit of a crap effort to be honest
• -1pt Engine Penalty System - At the moment there are 70 total dropped places before we find out if Grosjean has to change his gearbox it does look very messy. Because those penalties are so big they will be carried forward into the race itself - still no sign of my concept of just adding eight meters be unused grid drop. But then again if that was applied Jenson Button would be 176 metres behind Stevens...

Looking ahead to Tomorrow

The GP2 race was very entertaining and exemplified that overtaking is possible at various places around the Red Bull ring - how many of those will be exploited by the F1 grid is a different matter. At the front of the field I imagine roughly sod all to happen between the two Mercedes - they can't race each other because running close to the car in front will destroy the tyres. In the grand scheme of things risking tyre issues is not usually worth the risk just to put the other silver car under pressure for any extended period of time. The only hope is that Vettel and Williams can stay close enough to Mercedes to force them to press on and make a race of it - but that is more like wishful thinking than anything else.

But just like in Canada there is a selection of cars out of position - none more so than Raikkonen in the Ferrari. Annoyingly, four of the places he needs to gain will be gifted to him through others being handed technical penalties. Even before we go to the grid Kimi will be promoted from 18th to 14th - F1 is always finding new and innovative ways of minimising competition. The issue - well one of them - is that all four of the penalised cars will struggle to feature in the race, only Kvyat will be able to complete all of his grid penalties, while the others will be faced with further race penalties. We can only hope that somewhere in the melee and mess that something turns out to be worth watching tomorrow afternoon...