F1 Quals: United States!

It was a much nicer day than we had on Friday for practice.  Then, first practice was delayed, then shortened by a half-hour, because of fog.  It was thick enough to prevent the medical helicopter from flying.  Eventually the fog lifted, P1 started, then after about 15 minutes it was red flagged... because people noticed that the medical helicopter wasn't actually there yet.  Oops.

But that was yesterday.  Today, there were some clouds overhead, but the big thing was the wind.  The Legendary Announce Team said it was gusting up to 30mph, and it was playing hob with the cars all session.  It was bad enough that when the cars were going one direction, aero grip was boosted, but the other?  Shiv Hamilton was complaining that the front end of his Mercedes felt light and twitchy.  To be sure, the cloudy sky also meant that it was cool-ish and the track surface never warmed up... meaning the tires didn't have as much mechanical grip as they should, either.  So what does all this mean for the race tomorrow?  Well, here's the provisional grid for the 2013 United States Grand Prix:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	4Time Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:38.516	1:37.065	1:36.338
2	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:38.161	1:37.312	1:36.441
3	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:38.676	1:37.523	1:37.155
4	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber-Ferrari	1:38.339	1:37.828	1:37.296
5	Shiv Hamilton	Mercedes	1:37.959	1:37.854	1:37.345
6	HWMNBN	Ferrari	1:38.929	1:37.368	1:37.376
7	Ta-ta Perez	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.367	1:38.040	1:37.452
8	Heikki Kovalaineninnie	Lotus-Renault	1:38.375	1:38.078	1:37.715
9	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Renault	1:37.821	1:37.439	1:37.836
10	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:38.082	1:38.031	1:38.034
11	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	1:38.882	1:38.131
12	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:38.894	1:38.139
13	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.588	1:38.217
14	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:38.743	1:38.364
15	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:39.094	1:38.592
16	Jules Vergne	STR-Ferrari	1:38.880	1:38.696
17	Adrian F'n Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:39.250
18	How Droll Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1:39.351
19	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham-Renault	1:40.491
20	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Cosworth	1:40.528
21	Charles ToothPic	Caterham-Renault	1:40.596
22	Max Chilton	Marussia-Cosworth	1:41.401

Yeah, yeah, Vettel still gets the pole.  But Nico Hulkenberg ahead of Hamilton?  Valtteri Bottas as high on the grid as 3rd in Q3 until slipping down to 9th?  BOTH Saubers in Q3?  Massa 15th?  Rosberg in 14th?  Really?  Heikki Kovalainninninnie in 8th, despite not having driven the Lotus until yesterday?  What sort of weirdness IS this, anyway?  It's Austin Weird, of course, though I suspect the proprietor of that website frowns upon F1.

So we've got a... let's call it a "blended" grid, which should make for an exciting first couple of laps while the faster cars make their way up towards the front... or leave little pointy pieces of carbon fiber scattered all over the track, one of the two.

As far as penalties go, Button got a three grid-spot penalty for passing under the red flag on Friday, while ToothPic gets a five spot for a gearbox change, and thus will be starting from somewhere near the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge.

So the race is on NBC at 1pm Pond Central time, but there'll be an one-hour pre-race thingy at noon, also on The Big Network.  You have no excuse to miss this one, and it should be worth watching... except for the whole "Vettel streaking off to another victory" thing.

See ya after!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:55 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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