F1 Quals: Malaysia 2009!

Could Brawn make it two poles in a row?

Yup.  Here's the provisional grid:

Pos	Driver	Team							Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Jenson Button	Brawn-Mercedes							1:35.058	1:33.784	1:35.181
2	Jarno Trulli	Toyota							1:34.745	1:33.990	1:35.273
3	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault							1:34.935	1:34.276	1:35.518
4	Rubens Barrichello	Brawn-Mercedes							1:34.681	1:34.387	1:35.651
5	Timo Glockenspiel	Toyota							1:34.907	1:34.258	1:35.690
6	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota							1:35.083	1:34.547	1:35.750
7	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault							1:35.027	1:34.222	1:35.797
8	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber							1:35.166	1:34.562	1:36.106
9	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari							1:35.476	1:34.456	1:36.170
10	HWMNBN	Renault							1:35.260	1:34.706	1:37.659
11	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber							1:35.110	1:34.769
12	Kazoo Nakajima	Williams-Toyota							1:35.341	1:34.788
13	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes							1:35.280	1:34.905
14	Heikki Kovalaininnie	McLaren-Mercedes							1:35.023	1:34.924
15	SeaBass	STR-Ferrari							1:35.507	1:35.431
16	Felipe Massa	Ferrari							1:35.642
17	Nelson Piquet Jr	Renault							1:35.708
18	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Mercedes							1:35.908
19	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes							1:35.951
20	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari							1:36.107

Rubens Barrichello had to change a gearbox and will suffer a five-spot grid penalty.  Sebastian Vettel, of course, has a 10-spot penalty from last week's wreck with Kubica. 

The biggest surprise, however, is down at 16: Felipe Massa.  Ferrari and Massa are both guilty of complacency.  He did four laps in Q1, and was fourth after 12 minutes... at which point, the team thought "heck, he's in, let's get ready for Q2." 

And then the track, which had been washed clean by a monster downpour on Friday night, began to come alive as more and more rubber was laid down.  Times began to plummet and Massa's 1:35.642 began to look less and less solid.  Yet Ferrari did nothing... it was as if the team didn't even notice.  By the time there was any reaction from the team, it was too late to get the Ferrari back on the track and around to start a hot lap.  Just like that, Massa was out in Q1, a pathetic 16th.

Other than that, there wasn't much in the way of odd excitement.  Don't get me wrong, it was thrilling to watch the back-and-forth between the two Brawns, Jarno Trulli, and Seb Vettel, all of whom were P1 at one time or another, but the strategies and driving were normal F1 level.  Nobody jumped above the norm.  Which was still pretty cool, and Jarno Trulli is making a bid for the "smoothest driver" award for sure.  If he doesn't have a couple of poles and wins this season, it'll be a huge surprise.

Maybe his first will be Sunday... we'll find out then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:36 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 419 words, total size 23 kb.