F1 Quals: Brazil 2016

It was a gray day in São Paulo, breezy, cool, nothing like the weather there on Friday: sunny and hot.  But today brought with it something extra, something that made it perfect for F1 fans: rain.  It hadn't occurred yet, but there was threat of deluge hanging over the day's proceedings, and wouldn't *that* throw a spanner in the works?  Particularly with pole being potentially all-important in the race for the Championship between teammates Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.  So, what happened?  Here's the provisional grid for the 2016 Grand Prix of Brazil:

Pos	Driver	Car	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:11.511	1:11.238	1:10.736
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:11.815	1:11.373	1:10.838
3	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:12.100	1:12.301	1:11.404
4	Embryo Verstappen	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:11.957	1:11.834	1:11.485
5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:12.159	1:12.010	1:11.495
6	Smiley Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:12.409	1:12.047	1:11.540
7	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:12.893	1:12.343	1:11.937
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India Mercedes	1:12.428	1:12.360	1:12.104
9	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:12.684	1:12.331	1:12.165
10	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	1:12.700	1:12.312	1:12.266
11	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Mercedes	1:12.680	1:12.420
12	Esteban!	Haas Ferrari	1:13.052	1:12.431
13	Felipe Retired Massa	Williams Mercedes	1:12.432	1:12.521
14	Kid Kvyat	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:13.071	1:12.726
15	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:12.950	1:12.920
16	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:13.259	1:13.258
17	JensonRetired Button	McLaren Honda	1:13.276
18	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:13.410
19	Pascal's Wehrlein	MRT Mercedes	1:13.427
20	False Esteban	MRT Mercedes	1:13.432
21	Sony Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:13.623
22	FelipeNot Retired Nasr	Sauber Ferrari	1:13.681

While it was Hamilton who got the pole, it wasn't without effort.  In Q3, Rosberg was last on track, so Lewis had to go fast and hope for the best.  His second run improved his already blazingly quick time, and a good thing too, for Rosberg did the same... and beat Hamilton's old time.  As it was, the championship leader is about 1/10th of a second behind... and over a half-second faster than anybody else.  Hamilton must finish ahead of Rosberg for the championship to reach Abu Dhabi... any other result means Rosberg is the 2016 Driver's Champion.

Of other points of interest, I'm beginning to wonder if Jenson Button actually stopped driving a couple-three races ago.  When your teammate is easily making Q3 but you can't get out of Q1, well, sooner or later it ain't the car's fault.  Which is a damn shame, because I really like Button.  Ah well.

Race is tomorrow morning, at a decent time no less... F1U! afterwards.  See ya then, then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:46 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 434 words, total size 21 kb.