F1 Quals: Malaysia 2011

In Australia, Seb Vettel and Red Bull blew the rest of the field away on his pole lap to the tune of 8/10ths of a second.  He then went on to run away and hide from everybody during the race.  But could he continue that dominance in Malaysia, or could McLaren, Ferrari or even the resurgent Renaults kick the World Champion in the shins?  Let's look at the provisional grid for Sunday's Grand Prix of Malaysia:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	1:37.468	1:35.934	1:34.870
2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:36.861	1:35.852	1:34.974
3	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	1:37.924	1:36.080	1:35.179
4	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:37.033	1:35.569	1:35.200
5	HWMNBN	Ferrari	1:36.897	1:36.320	1:35.802
6	Grizzly Nick Heidfeld	Renault	1:37.224	1:36.811	1:36.124
7	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:36.744	1:36.557	1:36.251
8	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1:37.210	1:36.642	1:36.324
9	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:37.316	1:36.388	1:36.809
10	Gandalf Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1:36.994	1:36.691	1:36.820
11	Slappy Schumacher	Mercedes	1:36.904	1:37.035
12	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari	1:37.693	1:37.160
13	NKOTT	STR-Ferrari	1:37.677	1:37.347
14	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:38.045	1:37.370
15	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1:38.163	1:37.496
16	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:37.759	1:37.528
17	Adrian F'n Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:37.693	1:37.593
18	Friar Maldonado	Williams-Cosworth	1:38.276
19	Heikki Kovalaineninnie	Lotus-Renault	1:38.645
20	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Renault	1:38.791
21	Timo Glockenspiel	Virgin-Cosworth	1:40.648
22	Custard d'Ambrosio	Virgin-Cosworth	1:41.001
23	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT-Cosworth	1:41.549
24	Narain Kittylitter	HRT-Cosworth	1:42.574
	Q1 107% Time		1:43.516

All Skate, ladies and gentlemen, everybody All Skate!  Not only did HRT make the field, but even Kittylitter made it with nearly a second to spare.  Vitantonio Liuzzi was actually closer to the Virgins than he was to his own teammate.  A rousing round of applause to the tiny team from Murcia, everybody... HRT has officially joined the 2011 F1 season!  This bodes well for the rest of the season, at least as far as having a full grid goes.

Now for the important stuff.  Yes, Seb Vettel took pole position, but the difference has been much reduced.  .104 of a second is a much more manageable margin to deal with for the rest of the field to deal with in comparison to the sound thrashing handed out at Australia.  I think we're seeing a repeat of the Red Bull RB6 with this year's RB7: great in the corners, great under braking, but not quite as fast on the straights.  For you WWII buffs out there, the RB6 was the Mitsubishi A6M Zero of the F1 world: nimble, but not as fast as, say, the F6F Hellcat.  Australia isn't the fastest circuit in the world with no true high-speed zones to speak of, and so would play right into the RB7's strengths.  Malaysia, with its two gigantically long straights, would be more to the favor of the McLarens of the world. 

However, there is an ominous side to all of this for the rest of the field.  Vettel only put in 12 laps for the entirety of Quals.  In comparison, Hamilton did 19, Webber 17, Button 15, and HWMNBN 14.  On a circuit that's proving to be murder on the new Pirellis, those laps not turned on his tire allotment might make a small but crucial difference in the race.

Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, the top five spots on the grid fall exactly the same way they did in Australia.  Heck, even the sixth spot is held by a Renault, just like in the first race of the year, though this time driven by Grizzly Nick Heidfeld rather than The Red Menace.

So there you have it, folks.  We might just have ourselves a race tomorrow, depending on who makes it to Turn 1 first, and how much of a lead he has.  F1 Update! will be here Sunday... see you then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:07 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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