F1 Quals: Austria 2016

It is uncommon these days for my life to be so busy that I actually forget things like lunch dates or important to-do's.  Yet that is exactly what happened today here at Pond Central.  In fact, it wasn't until I was tucking into my plate of sausage-stuffed giant rigatoni at Olive Garden that I realized: I had completely forgotten about today's Quals!  Reacting immediately, I mentioned to my folks "huh, I forgot about quals," and had myself another spoonful of zuppa toscana and a breadstick.  I eventually made my way home, sat down to watch quals and promptly dozed off in my chair.  Once I woke up a few minutes later, I got myself to the computer desk to write this and found myself getting constantly distracted by things like this, or like this, or particularly like this.  To the point that it's now a very long time indeed since Quals, or even since I came home from lunch.  What I'm trying to say is that here's the provisional grid for the 2016 Grand Prix of Austria:

Pos	Driver	Car	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:06.947	1:06.228	1:07.922
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:06.516	1:06.403	1:08.465
3	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India Mercedes	1:07.385	1:07.257	1:09.285
4	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:06.761	1:06.602	1:09.781
5	Jenson Button	McLaren Honda	1:07.653	1:07.572	1:09.900
6	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:07.240	1:06.940	1:09.901
7	Smiley Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:07.500	1:06.840	1:09.980
8	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Mercedes	1:07.148	1:06.911	1:10.440
9	Embryo Verstappen	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:07.131	1:06.866	1:11.153
10	Felipe Not Nasr Massa	Williams Mercedes	1:07.419	1:07.145	1:11.977
11	Esteban!	Haas Ferrari	1:07.660	1:07.578
12	Pascal's Wager	MRT Mercedes	1:07.565	1:07.700
13	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:07.662	1:07.850
14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	1:07.671	1:08.154
15	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:07.618	No Time
16	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:07.657	No Time
17	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:07.941
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:07.965
19	Rio Rainbow Gate	MRT Mercedes	1:08.026
20	Kid Kvyat	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:08.409
21	Sony Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:08.418
22	Felipe Not Massa Nasr	Sauber Ferrari	1:08.446

Well, okay you say, big deal, just another Merc 1 - 2, hey?   Well not so fast there, Binkey!  Both Nico Rosberg and Seb Vettel had to change gearboxes meaning they take five-grid-spot penalties... which ALSO means that Force India's Nico Hulkenberg will be starting second, and Jenson Button's McLaren will be third! 

As the late great Mel Allen used to say, "How about that?"  (oops, got distracted again)

Down towards the bottom, we find Carlos Sainz, Sergio Perez and Kid Kvyat, all three of whom snapped their suspensions like dry twigs running over the... shall we say "aggressive"?... curbs at the Red Bull Ring.  There's been a lot of that this weekend... Rosberg's gearbox change is a result of his left-rear suspension breaking, and I know it happened to a few drivers in Practice 1 as well.

That's Rosberg's suspension at the point of failure.  Pretty clean snappage right there... and that's the thing about carbon fiber: it's remarkably strong right up to the moment it isn't anymore, at which point it breaks like a dry saltine.  Metal may be heavier, but it usually bends before it breaks... which is probably why suspensions were the last thing to change to carbon fiber in a F1 car design.

Well, it should be a race tomorrow.  There's even a chance of rain, which'll throw the ducks amongst the rye bread, that's for sure.  See you then, maybe!

If I remember.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:29 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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