F1 Quals: SPA 2008!

If you told me this morning that it was likely to rain during today's quals session at the Spa-Francopants circuit, I would have said "...and the surface of the sun is hot, it's fairly cold in Antarctica, and you're likely to see big eyes in anime."

So of course it was completely dry all day.  To further scramble my entire world view, SeaBass and his Toro Rosso was fastest in Q1.  At least Honda was really slow, so there's still some things happening the way they're supposed to.  If you start hearing stories about sunburned penguins, though, head for the hills.

Oh, the grid?  McLaren-Ferrari-McLaren-Ferrari.  Color me surprised.  Here's the provisional grid:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:46.887	1:46.088	1:47.338
2	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:46.873	1:46.391	1:47.678
3	Heikki Kovalaininnie	McLaren-Mercedes	1:46.812	1:46.037	1:47.815
4	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:46.960	1:46.298	1:47.992
5	Grizzly Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:47.419	1:46.311	1:48.315
6	HWMNBN	Renault	1:47.154	1:46.491	1:48.504
7	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:47.270	1:46.814	1:48.736
8	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:47.093	1:46.494	1:48.763
9	SeaBass	STR-Ferrari	1:46.777	1:46.544	1:48.951
10	Sebastian Vettel	STR-Ferrari	1:47.152	1:46.804	1:50.319
11	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:47.400	1:46.949
12	Nelson Piquet, Jr	Renault	1:47.052	1:46.965
13	Timo Glock	Toyota	1:47.359	1:46.995
14	David Coulthard's Chin	Red Bull-Renault	1:47.132	1:47.018
15	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:47.503	1:47.429
16	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:48.153
17	Jenson Button	Honda	1:48.211
18	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	1:48.226
19	Kazoo Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1:48.268
20	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	1:48.447

Kudos to Toro Rosso again for showing that they DO have speed, even though they're 9-10 on the grid.  SeaBass' performance was legit, even though the team does have a ways to go.  I've completely lost any chance there was on predicting how BMW is going to do in quals OR in the race... they're just too inconsistent now.  It's clear that they're the third best team on the grid, but it's also clear they really aren't close to the Big Two anymore.

40 years ago at Spa, Bruce McLaren, the founder of the team of the same name, won his first race for his team.  It seems appropriate, therefore, that Hamilton and Kovalaininnie are in great shape for the race.  I wonder, though, if they're short fueled?  They WERE faster than the Ferraris all day, but that doesn't mean anything per se. 

It seems that the Red Cars do better when it's warm and dry... and if there's one thing you can say about the Swimming Pool at Spa, it's that it won't be either come raceday.  However, Kimi Raikkonen has won the last three Belgian Grand Prix ('04 & '05 for McLaren, '07 for Ferrari... of course, there was no race in '06 as they were remodeling the course that year), so it's hard to bet against him.

And then there's the rain.  If it rains, about the only thing you can say is that Felipe Massa will drive like he's on rails... that lead right into the nearest gravel trap.  Other than that, it'll be a crapshoot.

Let's hope for rain!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:43 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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