F1 Quals: Bahrain 2015

Pretty night at Sakhir tonight as the F1 Circus gets ready for tomorrow's race, but who's going to be leading the horde towards Turn 1 when the lights go out?  Here's the provisional grid:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:33.928	1:32.669	1:32.571
2	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:34.919	1:33.623	1:32.982
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:34.398	1:33.878	1:33.129
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:34.568	1:33.540	1:33.227
5	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:34.161	1:33.897	1:33.381
6	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:34.488	1:33.551	1:33.744
7	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1:34.691	1:34.403	1:33.832
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:35.653	1:34.613	1:34.450
9	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:35.371	1:34.641	1:34.462
10	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus	1:35.007	1:34.123	1:34.484
11	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:35.451	1:34.704
12	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:35.310	1:34.737
13	Sony Ericsson	Sauber	1:35.438	1:35.034
14	HWMODBNA	McLaren	1:35.205	1:35.039
15	Embryo Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:35.611	1:35.103
16	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:35.677
17	Kid Kvyat	Red Bull Racing	1:35.800
18	Will Stevens	Manor	1:38.713
19	Roberto Merhi	Manor	1:39.722
20	Jenson Button	McLaren	No time

The same "Big Six" as we've come to expect, just a little scrambled.  Actually, Vettel was the polesitter right up until the very last moment.  Unsurprisingly, Hamilton nailed him on his last attempt, and to be honest there was a sense of inevitability to the proceedings.  Of COURSE Lewis Hamilton was going to be on pole.  No, it doesn't matter than his car is on fire and he's only got two tires, he'll still be faster.

One nice thing to see is that McLaren appears to have begun their long trek out of the darkness, at least kinda.  Jenson Button had an engine failure before he could set an actual qualifying time, and races at the Steward's whim.  However!  HWMODBNA got his valiant steed out of Q1 and firmly into Q2.  Reliability is still an issue obviously, but the signs are there: they're picking up about a second per lap ever race.  Again, this is the easy stuff they're doing.  Analogy time!  When painting a wall, it's a cinch to slather the big areas and cover dozens of square feet at a time.  Things start to slow down, though, when you're painting the baseboards and the moulding and around the electrical outlets.  It's those details that make the wall look good when you're done... and it's the little details that take a F1 car from the midpack to join the big guys.

The race is in the morning, 10am Pond Central time... you bring the bagels, I'll have the cold pizza ready.  See ya then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:35 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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