F1 Quals: Canada 2016

Icky gray skies hung low over the city of Montreal, and rain seemed to hang just over the racing surface.  But would it ever reach the ground, and what havoc would it cause on Qualifying for the 2016 Grand Prix of Canada?  Here's the provisional grid:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:14.121	1:13.076	1:12.812
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:13.714	1:13.094	1:12.874
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:13.925	1:13.857	1:12.990
4	Frowny Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:14.030	1:13.540	1:13.166
5	Embryo Verstappen	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:14.601	1:13.793	1:13.414
6	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:14.477	1:13.849	1:13.579
7	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Mercedes	1:14.389	1:13.791	1:13.670
8	Felipe Not Nasr Massa	Williams Mercedes	1:14.815	1:13.864	1:13.769
9	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India Mercedes	1:14.663	1:14.166	1:13.952
10	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	1:15.026	1:14.260	1:14.338
11	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:14.814	1:14.317
12	Jenson Button	McLaren Honda	1:14.755	1:14.437
13	Kid Kvyat	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:14.829	1:14.457
14	Esteban!	Haas Ferrari	1:15.148	1:14.571
15	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:15.444	1:14.803
16	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:14.714	1:21.956
17	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:15.459
18	Pascal Wager	MRT Mercedes	1:15.599
19	Sony Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:15.635
20	Felipe Not Massa Nasr	Sauber Ferrari	1:16.663
21	Rio Rainbow Gate	MRT Mercedes	1:17.052

It never did rain... at least, not in any way that bothered the cars at all.

Sharp-eyed readers will have noted that there are only 21 cars listed.  That's because Kevin Magnussen had a wreck during P3 that actually damaged his Renault's survival cell.  While he was fine, that damage means building up a new car, and while F1 mechanics can do amazing things in a short amount of time, they can't do a whole car from scratch in a couple of hours.  Thus, he sat out Quals and races at the whims of the stewards.

In slightly more important information, while this was the closest Quals result so far this season, it still ended up the way it usually does: Mercedes 1-2, Hamilton over Rosberg.  There was never any doubt in my mind that's how it was going to turn out, and lo it did come to pass.  Not, I admit, that this required any great prognosticational skills on my part.

Possibly the best part of Quals was seeing McLaren get into Q3 via Alonso's efforts... his  "woohoo" on the radio when he was told just made me laugh and laugh.  It's the little things, y'know?

Race is Sunday afternoon on NBC... fire up the Philco, sit down with a can of Schlitz, and watch yourself some o' that European-style racing!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:17 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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