Wow, what a shocker! Ferrari, McLaren, Ferrari, McLaren? Who'd have thought!

As you can guess, there's no huge surprises in quals this time around... in fact, it's pretty much the same way it's been the previous two races. Massa, Hamilton, Raikkonen and Alonso will probably be taking long-term leases on the first four slots in the grid for the entire season. The real excitement will be who's behind them, and in this race, it's the two BMWs (Grizzly Nick and Robert Heidfeld), who were looking very strong (though, obviously, not as strong as the Big Two).

There was (finally!) a Renault sighting in Q3, as Giancarlo Fisichella dragged his steed up to 7th. Mark Webber's RedBull ended up in 8th, a smidge ahead of Jarno Trulli's Toyota and the Williams Boys of Rosberg and Man-Mountain. Heikki Koveinalieninenlain was 12th, and ANT kicked a huge portion of arse to get up to 13th (in fact, he just barely missed getting into Q3, being bumped right at the end). Ralfy-boy was 14th.

The factory Honda team of Rubens and Jensen were next, glaring balefully at Ant's SuperAguri. SuperSato was less than .200 behind Button, which really IS a surprise; he's usually faster than Ant.

Fashion-Victim Liuzzi and American Speed, the Toro Rosso duo, came up behind them. Spyker got a thrill when Adrian ("No Cute Nickname") Sutil made it off the last row of the grid, just ahead of David Coulthard's Chin. The Chin's car seems to be having problems, perhaps a repeat of the brake pedal fiasco from last race. There really isn't any reason that the RB3 should be this low on the grid, and should be at least in Q2 every race... unless DC'sC has lost the proverbial "it"?

Finally, inevitably, Christijan Albers is tail-end charlie, rounding off another great qual session for Spyker. Too bad they don't have any personality, I could really like a team that's this bad...

I suppose I should be more excited about Lewis Hamilton's 2nd place. He's a rookie in F1, it's only his third race, and if 'Nando wasn't his teammate, he'd have a decent shot at winning this one. As is, he might become the first driver ever to podium in his first three F1 races. That's pretty amazing, though it just means that he was plopped into a great team and a great car. If you think back, most new drivers in recent times have debuted for lower-level teams (Alonso for Minardi, Michael Schumacher with Jordan, Raikkonen with Sauber, just to name a few). Anybody think that Hamilton would be within sniffing distance of the top of the grid if he was driving for, oh let's say, Spyker?

So that's the grid for the GP of Bahrain, huh? I really hope BMW picks up a little bit more speed somewhere... I want to see SOMEONE beat the Big Two ONCE this year.

Oh, and in a completely unrelated note, this is post number 500 here at Wonderduck's Pond. Have some cake, everybody.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:59 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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