F1 Quals: Spain 2017

A lovely if breezy day greeted the F1 Circus as they took to the track in Barcalounger for go-fast day.  There were some differences to be seen however: upgrades could be spotted everywhere you looked.  Mercedes had the best of them, a pair of bargeboards with titanium-tipped claws on their ends:

Kiss any pushy Ferrari's tires goodbye!  Mercedes looked like they had recovered their teamwide mojo through the practice sessions, leading people to believe Quals would be an arse-kicking of historic proportions.  On the other hand, the Red Team had to perform a near-literal miracle just to get Seb Vettel on track, as they had to do a full engine change in the two hours between the end of P3 and the start of Q1.  Meanwhile, one of Red Bull's drivers was on record saying they could win... if both Mercedes and both Ferraris wrecked.  So just how badly did the Silver Arrows trounce the rest of the field?  Here's the provisional grid for the 2017 Grand Prix of Spain:

Pos	Driver	Car	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:20.511	1:20.210	1:19.149
2	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:20.939	1:20.295	1:19.200
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:20.991	1:20.300	1:19.373
4	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:20.742	1:20.621	1:19.439
5	Embryo Verstappen	Red Bull Racing	1:21.430	1:20.722	1:19.706
6	Smiley Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1:21.704	1:20.855	1:20.175
7	Indy Alonso	McLaren Ho_da	1:22.015	1:21.251	1:21.048
8	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:21.998	1:21.239	1:21.070
9	Felipe Not Retired Massa	Williams Mercedes	1:22.138	1:21.222	1:21.232
10	False Esteban	Force India Mercedes	1:21.901	1:21.148	1:21.272
11	Kevin Magnussen	Haas Ferrari	1:21.945	1:21.329
12	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:21.941	1:21.371
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1:22.091	1:21.397
14	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:21.822	1:21.517
15	Pascal Triangle	Sauber Ferrari	1:22.327	1:21.803
16	Sony Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:22.332
17	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:22.401
18	Pleasant Stroll	Williams Mercedes	1:22.411
19	Stoffelwaffle	McLaren Hon_a	1:22.532
20	Kid Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:22.746

Oh.  Sure, Mercedes got pole, but it was only by .051 seconds and needed Vettel to completely bollix the final chicane to get that.  The top four cars are covered by less than .300 seconds.  So much for Merc Upgrade Domination.

In what has to be the most unimaginable result thus far, Indy Alonso dragged his McLaren, powered by the execrable H_nda "power" unit, into Q3 and seventh on the grid.  At the moment, for McLaren this is akin to the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series... long spoken of, but never occuring.  Some may scoff at a mere seventh place, but considering that Alonso's teammate Stoffelwaffle was saved by a last-place start only by a Toro Rosso whose driver said "the car was not driven by me today, it was driving on its own" after being knocked out of Q1, seventh has got to feel amazing.  Let's just see if Alonso can make it to the grid this week...

Race Sunday morning... see ya then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:47 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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