Round 5: Spain 2016: Qualifying

Greetings Internet, 

There are some qualifying sessions that take hours to complete and are peppered with rain, collisions and make Saturday a very dramatic affair. Then there are sessions like today, running under clear-ish skies with no interruptions but prove to be just as enthralling but for different reasons. Yes looking at the grid and the results of the afternoon's competition demonstrated the precise characteristics of the Spanish circuit which can often see the running order defined by team performance. However underneath that result was an array of strong individual performances and drivers under pressure from new team mates. What materialised was a series of internal battles playing out within the macrocosm of the main grid. To make things look a little more interesting tomorrow on a track which doesn't necessarily lend itself to lap after lap of wheel to wheel racing there are a couple of cars out of position. 

Q1

At the start of the session Manor had the Spanish tarmac to themselves and alas despite all the will in the world, the folk from the lower end of the grid weren't going to threaten the Q2 positions. The same could be said for Sauber whose financial difficulties have severely hampered development, and both teams were anchored to the bottom two rows of the grid. Sauber ahead of Manor purely because they have a slightly more aerodynamically effective configuration while Manor have the stronger engine. That left two relegation places left and early in the session those seemed to be earmarked for Renault or Haas.

But there was a fly in that particular ointment, in the form of an errant Williams - an early lap plagued with traffic meant that Felipe Massa was loitering dangerously close to the drop zone it would only take a strong lap from those right behind him to cause more significant problems. While we waited for someone to make that attempt, at the front it was another predictable Mercedes 1-2 with Rosberg ahead of Lewis - Red Bull and Ferrari fighting over who would be the closest challengers. 

Back with the relegation battle, Felipe was running out of time to secure his promotion into Q2. It got more difficult when Jenson Button buried the McLaren deep in the promotion places, but McLaren have been showing more pace this weekend. The bigger surprise was Kevin Magnussen in the Renault delivering a brilliant lap to secure only the second Q2 appearance for the bright yellow machines in 2016. This dropped Massa into relegation and bizarrely he was unable to respond despite having a much faster car than those around him, so he and Palmer in the second Renault joined Manor and Sauber in relegation.

Q2

Now I must admit that for the start of this second part of qualifying I was in the kitchen, as the mid-session toastie took a little longer to prepare than one would have liked. But once I returned the two Mercedes cars were setting their one and only flying laps of the second part of qualifying. Laps which were comfortably faster than they achieved in Q1 and in this instance the balance of power shifted away from Rosberg as Hamilton started to emerge as the most likely car to take the all important pole position. It was in this second part of the qualifying session where we could look at how the driver swapping episode within the Red Bull camp was playing out. At this stage Mad Max Verstappen was doing a striking job in his new seat as he was defeating his more experienced team mate. It was also the first time we started to see Ferrari struggling - Raikkonen visited the tarmac run-off on the outside of turn three. Vettel in the other car was also experiencing oversteer.

In the battle in and around the relegation zone, there were some drivers who were locked into the bottom six places - Magnussen and the two Haas cars didn't quite have the pace to threaten the top ten. In the middle of this fight was the second of the new team-mate battles - where Kvyat was not having the same degree of success in his new team. Carlos Sainz was sitting inside the top ten, while the Russian was struggling to keep up the same level of performance and looked unlikely to make progress. In the end strong performances from Alonso and Perez - the former scoring the best qualifying result for the new McLaren Honda partnership on home turf - meant that Daniil was doomed to stay in the relegation zone.

Q3
The final part of the qualifying session turned into more of a formality at the front - as the two Mercedes took to the track but only Rosberg completed a lap that staked a claim on the front row of the grid. Lewis on the hand, got things a little wrong and posted a slower lap due to a lock-up on his first flying lap. This lead to an unusual running order after the first set of competitive qualifying laps - Mad Max Verstappen was second with the Ferraris seeming to be struggling in comparison, losing their grasp on the role of being Mercedes' closest challengers. 

On the track there was some work to do in the Mercedes camp to regain the standard control of the front row. The question would be whether Rosberg would be able to secure his first pole position this season in a session where Hamilton's car hadn't broken down. The answer was, well... no. Once again Lewis found the time he lost on the first attempt and demoted Nico into second place but that wasn't the most intriguing development as the battle for third sat on the verge of stealing highlights. At present Verstappen was poised to be the leading challenger to the two silver cars on his debut... that was until Ricciardo took exception to the young upstart turning up in his team and showing him who's boss. In response Ricciardo delivered an epic lap to knock several tenths off Max's time and only a few more tenths short of Rosberg's second place time. Ferrari on the other side had to settle for the third row.

The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners
Here are the points following the qualifying for the Spanish GP, although this points total is actually been written a week after the session actually took place due to other events taking place throughout the weekend made it impossible to complete the post after the live broadcast.

• 10pts - Daniel Ricciardo - That was a monumental lap to make sure he asserted number one status in the team when it mattered
• 8pts - Fernando Alonso - Got the McLaren into Q3 for the first time in the new Honda era
• 6pts - Kevin Magnussen - Since the return of the new/old qualifying format Renault haven't made it out of Q3, until Magnussen escaped relegation in Spain
• 5pts - Max Verstappen - Adjusted to the new car very quickly and almost became the fastest Red Bull car on his debut
• 4pts - Carlos Sainz - Was paired with the outgoing Kvyat this weekend and comfortably beat the more experienced Russian 
• 3pts -Kimi Raikkonen - Out qualified Vettel after a making fewer mistakes on the second flying lap
• 2pts - Valtteri Bottas - After Williams struggled with Massa, Valtteri holds up the flag and got the car into the top ten.
• 1pt - Sergio Perez - Force India inside the top ten when the often favoured Hulkenberg fell out in Q2

Normally I'd have a 'Looking to tomorrow' section but as it is now a week after the fact... it would be a little pointless so I shall just move on to work on something resembling a race post...