F1 Quals: China 2015

Before you can race in F1, you must qualify.  This has been duly done by the accumulated Circus, but how did everything end up in Shanghai?  Let's take a look at the provisional grid for the 2015 Grand Prix of China:

Pos	Name	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:38.285	1:36.423	1:35.782
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:38.496	1:36.747	1:35.824
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:37.502	1:36.957	1:36.687
4	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:38.433	1:37.357	1:36.954
5	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:38.014	1:37.763	1:37.143
6	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:37.790	1:37.109	1:37.232
7	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1:38.534	1:37.939	1:37.540
8	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus	1:38.209	1:38.063	1:37.905
9	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:38.521	1:38.017	1:38.067
10	Sony Ericsson	Sauber	1:38.941	1:38.127	1:38.158
11	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:38.563	1:38.134
12	Kid Kvyat	Red Bull Racing	1:39.051	1:38.209
13	Zygote Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:38.387	1:38.393
14	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:38.622	1:38.538
15	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:38.903	1:39.290
16	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:39.216
17	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:39.276
18	HWPMBN	McLaren	1:39.280
19	Will Stevens	Manor	1:42.091
20	Roberto Merhi	Manor	1:42.842

Pretty much what we expect these days.  The Mercs have the one lap speed advantage over the Ferraris, but aren't as easy on their tires as the red cars.  The team from Maranello looked quite  good during long runs in practice, suggesting that Vettel and Raikkonen will be bringing it to Hamilton and Rosberg on Sunday.  The Finn's position in sixth is due to, and I quote, "a sh*t lap", where the car misbehaved during his final pole attempt. 

Nobody believes that the Williams are serious contenders for anything more than staying a notch below the Ferraris, and Red Bull is trying desperately to find some way to explain their sudden lack of speed, grip and class.  Their whining coefficient is off the charts, though.

The one thing everybody can hope for is Nico Rosberg's proclamation coming true.  After Quals, he stated that he believed the softer Option tires were going to die quickly during race conditions.  While the Silver Arrows managed to hold an unused set of Options in reserve, their 1.7 seconds per lap advantage over the Prime tires won't matter if they're only good for five or six laps... the extra pit-stop will take longer than the speed advantage saves the team... particularly if Ferrari can repeat last race and make their tires run longer.

Down at the other end of the order, we actually had both Manor chassis on track at the same time, which may have been the first time that's occurred this year.  Both are well within the 107% time of 1:44.something as well.  Meanwhile, McLaren is... improving, something like a second or two a race.  Of course, these are the easy fixes they're applying; its when they reach "average" that they'll start to really have difficulty improving to "good" or "great."

In other news, we had a track invader during Friday practice.

The man, a Chinese citizen, came down out of the stands, scaled the 10' tall catch fence and the interior armco barrier, ran across the front straight and dove over the inside wall.  He then approached the Ferrari pits and stated an interest in "giving one of the cars a try."  He was apprehended by circuit marshals and turned over to the local police.  As one can imagine, the F1 Circus immediately screamed for a larger security presence.  Reports say that the organizers doubled the front grandstand's police force.  I'm only going to say "wow" and leave it at that. 

Race is Sunday morning... see ya after.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 01:14 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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