F1 Quals: Bahrain 2009!

Well, that was unexpected!  That was also, paradoxically, unsurprising in this Bizarro Season of F1.  Let's take a look at the grid for the Grand Prix of Bahrain:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:32.779	1:32.671	1:33.431
2	Timo Glockenspiel	Toyota	1:33.165	1:32.613	1:33.712
3	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	1:32.680	1:32.474	1:34.015
4	Jenson Button	Brawn-Mercedes	1:32.978	1:32.842	1:34.044
5	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:32.851	1:32.877	1:34.196
6	Rubens Barrichello	Brawn-Mercedes	1:33.116	1:32.842	1:34.239
7	HWMNBN	Renault	1:33.627	1:32.860	1:34.578
8	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:33.297	1:33.014	1:34.818
9	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:33.672	1:33.166	1:35.134
10	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:33.117	1:32.827	1:35.380
11	Heikki Kovalaineninnie	McLaren-Mercedes	1:33.479	1:33.242
12	Kazoo Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1:33.221	1:33.348
13	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:33.495	1:33.487
14	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:33.377	1:33.562
15	Nelson Piquet Jr	Renault	1:33.608	1:33.941
16	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:33.722
17	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari	1:33.753
18	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Mercedes	1:33.910
19	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	1:34.038
20	SeaBass	STR-Ferrari	1:34.159

Yes, that's right, your eyes are not deceiving you... an all-Toyota front row, a first for the Japanese team.  It turns out that both cars are running light on fuel, with nearly 20kgs less than the RB5 of Sebastian Vettel, who has a whisker more than both Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.  Still, it's a great result for Trulli who, to be frank, stunk in China. 

Still, it looks to me like it'll be a battle between Vettel and Button when the lights go out Sunday.  One can't count out the Ferraris, however: Raikkonen has more fuel onboard than anybody save Rosberg, and Massa has just a bit less than Kimi.

One thing to watch out for, though, is heat-related failures on race day.  The pit walls were constantly telling their drivers to "keep the engine cool, don't push it too hard" all day.  That won't be easy to do come the race, and the Toyotas in particular seemed to be having problems.  Much of the rear bodywork by their exhausts had gone from bright white to dull brown in a way that suggests scorching.  While it's not uncommon for that sort of thing to occur, the amount that it was happening on the TF109 was troublesome.


Throw in two seperate fuel fires on Robert Kubica's BMW in Q2, likely caused by the heat, and you've got what might be a dangerous situation brewing.

In other news, Adrian Sutil was penalized for blocking Mark Webber, and has been dropped to 19th. 

This should be quite the exciting race to watch, power-outages and thunderstorms not withstanding.  None of this delay would have occured if I hadn't've had to work at the Duck U. Bookstore today, but so it goes... cross your fingers and see you Sunday for the F1U!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:59 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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