Round 15 - Russia 2015 - Qualifying

Greetings Internet, 

Today has been a strange day in Russia, a destructive one in many respects as well. All of the support race action has been severely curtailed, the GP2 race was cut down to 15 laps after a lengthy barrier repair operation following a series of collisions on the opening lap. The GP3 race was cancelled completely following more significant barrier repairs resulting from a significant accident in the middle of the final practice session. This accident befell Toro Rosso driver Carlos Sainz at the end of the back 'straight' - Carlos lost the car under braking and slammed into the inside wall before cannoning at an immense speed into the barrier on the outside of the first chicane. The car submarined underneath the techpro barriers doing a significant amount of damage to the armco barriers behind them. It seemed to take a considerable amount of time before any safety officials attended the scene and extract Sainz from the car. Eventually the Toro Rosso driver was recovered and taken to a nearby hospital, scans and assessment have determined that somehow, Carlos sustained no injuries whatsoever, and could even start the race tomorrow. That is a marvelous example of how car safety has improved, because it looked a little scary for a while. 

In other news, the Red Bull situation has developed even further as it appears that Ferrari had now declined to offer Red Bull engines -  so their situation appears to be getting more confusing and more uncertain. The current estimate is that some form of decision will be made towards the end of the month - as to what their options are for next year. None of that mattered on track this afternoon because they were no where near Ferrari or Mercedes, perhaps once more indicating how much of a deficit the Renault engine is creating for the team.

Q1

The first part of the session got underway after an extended delay to cover the repair time to the barrier. It was only 15 minutes before the green light that we were made aware that the session would start on time. With such limited running time in all three practice sessions - venturing into qualifying was certainly a voyage into the unknown. Rainfall, diesel spills and lack of track action had left the circuit in a very low grip state. So cars were getting sideways all over the place, and not to be outdone - Pastor Maldonado slid across the tarmac run-off area in turn.... well I don't know which corner it was as they mostly look the same in the first two sectors. 

Several drivers took to the super-softs straight out of the pits without using the standard tyre compound. With Sainz already out of qualifying due to being in hospital, there were few were only two places in the relegation zone up for grabs. This was good news for McLaren... well at least for Button - because Alonso was facing yet another colossal grid penalty so even with the reduced chance of being relegated - he'd start at the back anyway. At the front ven the front runners were struggling - Rosberg set the initial top time despite sliding through the final corners. Hamilton on the other hand was one second slower, which resulted in an amusing response from Lewis over the team-radio. He was informed of his position, lap time, gap to P1 and various other settings - but Hamilton dialed the conversation back to the key piece of information... that one second deficit. 

As the session progressed it became clear that the faster times would only be set at the very end of Q1 as the track continued to evolve. So with times changing constantly, some interesting names flirted with the relegation zone alongside the two Manor cars. For a while Bottas and Perez were up for relegation - but quickly moved up the field. This dropped Alonso into the bottom four while the other McLaren was safely through into the next round. Fernando's final effort wasn't enough to make it two McLarens in Q2 - but as noted earlier it didn't really matter to Alonso. The other victim of Q1 was Marcus Ericsson in the Sauber along with Stevens and Mehri - as Rossi was back on GP2 duties this weekend

Q2

The second part of qualifying started with Mercedes moving onto the softer compound that they hadn't used in Q1, and while we waited for the first flying laps to be completed the TV camera operators found some scary sights. These were very large pictures of Daniil Kvyat pasted across the side of one of the grandstands - as if the death stare wasn't scary enough a huge picture of that face will create nightmares for years to come. On track however it was a tale of two Nicos - Hulkenberg set the first lap time, but Rosberg smashed that time and claimed that all important top spot. After the defeat in the first part of qualifying, Hamilton found some of the pace he was missing in Q1 to take the Q2 pole. To which Rosberg responded and took the lead away from Lewis - on this basis there was the faint hint that we might see an epic battle for pole when it came to the final part of qualifying. At this point Williams and Ferrari hadn't set a representative time. 

When Ferrari did take to the track, there initial times were a long way off the pace of the leading Mercedes - which put pay to any hints of a Singapore 2.0 race weekend. Bottas was proving to be the lead challenger to the Mercedes team instead of the Ferrari's which is not to be unexpected given the nature of the track and the performances last season. However that wasn't universal within the Williams team - because Felipe Massa was not on the same pace as his Finnish team-mate. For some reason Massa was languishing towards the bottom of the relegation zone - below Button's McLaren and Nasr's Sauber. 

In the final phase of the session, those drivers in relegation were aiming to elevate themselves into Q3 - and it was the Red Bull drivers who were on the cusp of promotion as both Force Indias moved into the top ten. Mercedes power proving to be very useful once more with Grosjean dragging his Lotus into the promotion places again. The only Mercedes powered car in the relegation zone belonged to Pastor Maldonado - and didn't look like it was going to make any progress up the field. That left Ricciardo, Kvyat and Mad Max fighting over the final promotion places - Ricciardo made the first move and moved into the top ten - demoting Kvyat in the process. The Russian attempted to repay the compliment but couldn't find enough pace - once he was confirmed as being relegated we saw images of people leaving the stands. Perhaps the others were waiting for Markelov's contribution to the GP2 event - for both corners he lasted...

Q3 

Onto the final part of qualifying and the nature of the circuit was playing a part in how the drivers attempted the crucial finale. The smooth, low grip tarmac meant that a single warm up lap wasn't quite enough to build heat into the tyres. Only Bottas put his foot down after a single effort - indicating that Williams have a different set up on their cars in contrast to the rest of the field - perhaps that configuration is what proved to be Massa's downfall early on. After a second warm-up lap Ferrari and Mercedes were ready to strike - and again it was Rosberg who had the upper hand over Hamilton as they knocked 8 tenths off Bottas' early lead. The Ferraris on the other hand couldn't knock Valtteri off the provisional third place spot and the second row - Raikkonen losing time running wide at the first of the final sector chicanes. All of the Mercedes/Ferrari powered cars claimed the top seven positions, with Grosjean not taking part in the early runs...

And so on to the final runs and the final challenge for pole position - and given how qualifying had run thus far - there was the prospect of a titanic battle for pole... But that all rather fell apart on Hamilton's fast lap - because Lewis copied Raikkonen's early mistake and ran off the circuit at the stadium section. The bizarre part of it was that he just returned to the pits - no regrouping and trying again he just gave up. Perhaps the tyres were damaged, and due to the number of warm up laps required there wasn't enough time to build up to another quick time. Either way the battle was over and thus so was qualifying... what happened to that battle... so much of an anti-climax

The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners

Here are the points winners from the Russian GP qualifying

10pts - Carlos Sainz - Slams into the wall, gets buried in a barrier - spends the night in hospital and wants to race the next day
8pts - Valtteri Bottas - Again the closest contender to Mercedes defeating the two Ferraris in the process
6pts - Romain Grosjean  - While Maldonado continues to struggle Romain keeps dragging the Lotus into the top 10
5pts - Nico Rosberg - Taking the fight to Hamilton once more and maybe, just maybe there might be a fight on track tomorrow
4pts - Nico Hulkenberg - Another top ten for the Force India driver as best of the non Mercedes/Williams/Ferrari trio
3pts - Sergio Perez - Doubling up on the Force India population in Q3
2pts - Alex Rossi - Well having to step aside to take on his GP2 duties this a win in the feature race is worlds apart from the Manor drive
1pt - Sochi - They planted some grass, well done them...

Looking to Tomorrow

Well last years Russian GP was highly regarded as the most boring race of 2014, but with the chaotic nature of this weekend, who knows - we may be in for something a little different tomorrow