F1 Quals: Monaco 2013

Rain.  Rain makes everything better.  In Formula 1, rain is called "the great equalizer."  When it rains, you throw everything you knew about the cars and throw it all into the wheeliebins.  ANYthing can happen, and occasionally does.  Now make it rain during qualifying at Monaco, and you can imagine what happened.

Let's take a look at the provisional grid for the 2013 Grand Prix of Monaco:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:24.620	1:16.135	1:13.876
2	Shiv Hamilton	Mercedes	1:23.779	1:16.265	1:13.967
3	Hannibal Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:24.243	1:15.988	1:13.980
4	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:25.352	1:17.322	1:14.181
5	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	1:25.835	1:16.040	1:14.822
6	HWMNBN	Ferrari	1:23.712	1:16.510	1:14.824
7	Sergio Perez	McLaren-Mercedes	1:24.682	1:17.748	1:15.138
8	Adrian F'n Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:25.108	1:17.261	1:15.383
9	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:23.744	1:17.420	1:15.647
10	Jules Vergne	STR-Ferrari	1:23.699	1:17.623	1:15.703
11	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber-Ferrari	1:25.547	1:18.331
12	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	1:24.852	1:18.344
13	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:23.738	1:18.603
14	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Renault	1:24.681	1:19.077
15	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham-Renault	1:26.095	1:19.408
16	Cardinal Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1:23.452	1:21.688
17	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:26.322
18	Charles ToothPic	Caterham-Renault	1:26.633
19	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:26.917
20	Max Chilton	Marussia-Cosworth	1:27.303
DNQ	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Cosworth	No time
DNQ	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	No time

The rain came just as Q1 was about to begin, and you can see what it did to the times.  It was quite a common sight to see names like Valtteri Bottas and Jules Vergne at the top of the timesheet, though eventually it settled down slightly.  In Q2, a drying line started to form and the times dropped precipitously, leaving most of the usual suspects in Q3. 

In Q3, on a mostly dry circuit, the expected Mercedes massacre occurred, with Nico Rosberg taking his third consecutive pole, and Shiv Hamilton locking up the front row for the German team.  Red Bull holds the second row, and Hannibal Vettel looked like he wanted to kill someone in the interview room.

You may notice that Massa got a DNQ: he was involved in a terrible wreck in Saturday Practice, broke both ends of the car, and Ferrari just couldn't get it rebuilt in time for Quals. 

Fun Qualifying... maybe we'll have rain for the race, too!  That's Sunday morning, we'll see you afterwards!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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