F1 Quals: Russia 2017

2008.

We haven't seen this result since 2008.  Think about how long it's been since then.  Go on, think about it.  Okay, that's enough.  Now what am I talking about?  Let's look at the provisional grid for the 2017 Grand Prix of Mother Russia:

Pos	Driver	Car	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Seb Vettel	Ferrari	1:34.493	1:34.038	1:33.194
2	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:34.953	1:33.663	1:33.253
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:34.041	1:33.264	1:33.289
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:34.409	1:33.760	1:33.767
5	Smiley Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1:35.560	1:35.483	1:34.905
6	Not Retired Massa	Williams Mercedes	1:35.828	1:35.049	1:35.110
7	Embryo Verstappen	Red Bull Racing	1:35.301	1:35.221	1:35.161
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1:35.507	1:35.328	1:35.285
9	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:36.185	1:35.513	1:35.337
10	False Esteban	Force India Mercedes	1:35.372	1:35.729	1:35.430
11	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:35.827	1:35.948
12	Pleasant Stroll	Williams Mercedes	1:36.279	1:35.964
13	Kid Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:35.984	1:35.968
14	Kevin Magnussen	Haas Ferrari	1:36.408	1:36.017
15	Indy Alonso	McLaren Honda	1:36.353	1:36.660
16	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:36.462
17	Stoffelwaffel	McLaren Honda	1:37.070
18	Pascal's Wager	Sauber Ferrari	1:37.332
19	Sony Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:37.507
20	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:37.620

It's Ferraris' first front-row lockout since Raikkonen and Massa did it for Ferrari at Mangy-Curs  in 2008, and the first time since Singapore 2015 that there isn't a Mercedes on the front row at all.  And know what?  It wasn't even particularly close.  Sure, Bottas made it look good, but Hamilton couldn't even manage one of his patented 'fast-lap-out-of-his-arse' laps, let alone a pole lap.  One never got the impression that the red cars weren't going to have run of the place at the end of the day, not after only being a half-second off the pace in Q1... while on the super-soft tires when everybody else was on the faster ultra-softs.  That's a Mercedes thing, being quicker on the harder rubber in quals, and they had it turned on them.  Feels good, man.

Race in the morning, see ya then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:48 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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