F1 Quals: Austria 2015

Rain hit the RedBullRing before the Qualifying session.  While it wasn't raining when the Time To Go Fast began, there were still plenty of wet patches around the circuit.  Would it make any difference to who was on top?  Let's take a look at the provisional grid for the 2015 Grand Prix of Austria:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:12.218	1:09.062	1:08.455
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:10.976	1:08.634	1:08.655
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:11.184	1:09.392	1:08.810
4	Felipe Not Nasr Massa	Williams	1:11.830	1:09.719	1:09.192
5	LeMans Hulkenberg	Force India	1:11.319	1:09.604	1:09.278
6	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:11.894	1:09.598	1:09.319
7	Embryo Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:11.307	1:09.631	1:09.612
8	Kid Kvyat	Red Bull	1:12.092	1:10.187	1:09.694
9	Felipe Not Massa Nasr	Sauber	1:12.001	1:09.652	1:09.713
10	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus	1:11.821	1:09.920	No Time
11	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:11.661	1:10.374
12	Sony Ericsson	Sauber	1:12.388	1:10.426
13	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:11.158	1:10.465
14	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:11.973	1:10.482
15	HWIOSCTBNA	McLaren	1:12.508	1:10.736
16	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:12.522
17	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:12.632
18	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:12.867
19	Roberto Merhi	Marussia	1:14.071
20	Will Stevens	Marussia	1:15.368

Up at the top of the grid, it looks awfully normal.  Lewis Hamilton took pole, but it actually took a little bit of luck for it to happen.  He was the last to cross the start/finish line before time ran out on Q3, but he immediately beached his Mercedes into the kittylitter outside of Turn 1... just as the news came out that his teammate Nico Rosberg had set the fastest first AND second sector times of the day... if he kept that pace up, he'd grab pole easily.  And then, just as Hamilton was exiting from his car at the far end of the front straight, Rosberg hurled his car off at the final turn, located at the OTHER end.  He left four long black streaks of rubber behind as he reached the gravel trap short of the tire wall.  So much for fast times on the first two sectors.

At the other end of the grid, we had a very interesting conversation between the Ferrari pit wall and Kimi Raikkonen: "Okay, Kimi, we wound up P18."  "How did that happen?"  As this is a friendly, happy blog, I may have edited a few words out of his response.  Mistakes were made, and as the track dried at the end of P1, times began to plummet.  When the team pitted his car, Raikkonen was seventh on the timesheets.  A couple of minutes later, he was 18th and out of Quals.  Heck, at one point McLaren's Jenson Button was on pole, though with six or seven minutes left.

Speaking of McLaren, both of their cars will be starting from Unterkohlstatten due to receiving matching 25-grid place penalties.  Since there are only 20 places on the grid, they'll both be starting from the very back AND either a time penalty or a drive-through penalty to boot.  Button basically changed every aspect of his power unit before Quals, while HWIOSCTBNA did the same except for the cigarette lighter.  Red Bull's Daniel Riccardio and Toro Rosso's Kid Kyvat have also suffered various penalties, though nowhere near as extreme as the McLarens.

So that's the way it works out for the race in Austria.  One thing to keep an eye on: both Saubers are reportedly set up for a rainy race, while nobody else appears to be.  More and more reports are suggesting rain about one hour into the contest... if that happens, considering how well they qualified I'd expect a major upset on Sunday.

Oh, and congratulations have to go out to Mercedes.  The last time either Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg wasn't on pole for a race was one year ago, when Williams' Felipe Not Nasr Massa pulled a surprise in Austria.  It's been one full race year, 19 races, since then.

Race in the morning.  Lord knows when I'll get the writeup done!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 02:47 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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