F1 Quals: Europe @ Valencia 2010

Red Bull and McLaren are the only teams to have claimed the top spot in qualifying this season, and in the first two practice sessions, neither showed much in the way of continuing that streak.  Will this be the first race this year where one of those two worthies aren't on pole?  Let's look at the provisional grid for Sunday's Grand Prix of Europe, Valencia style:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	1:38.324	1:38.015	1:37.587
2	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	1:38.549	1:38.041	1:37.662
3	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.697	1:38.158	1:37.969
4	HWMNBN	Ferrari	1:38.472	1:38.179	1:38.075
5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:38.657	1:38.046	1:38.127
6	Robert Kubica	Renault	1:38.132	1:38.062	1:38.137
7	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.360	1:38.399	1:38.210
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Williams-Cosworth	1:38.843	1:38.523	1:38.428
9	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1:38.449	1:38.326	1:38.428
10	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1:39.004	1:38.552	1:38.523
11	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari	1:39.096	1:38.586
12	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1:38.752	1:38.627
13	Adrian F'n Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:39.021	1:38.851
14	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	1:38.969	1:38.884
15	Slappy Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1:38.994	1:39.234
16	Pete Rose	BK Sauber-Ferrari	1:39.003	1:39.264
17	NKOTT	STR-Ferrari	1:39.128	1:39.458
18	Kamui Kobayashi	BK Sauber-Ferrari	1:39.343
19	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Cosworth	1:40.658
20	Heikki Kovalaineninnie	Lotus-Cosworth	1:40.882
21	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin-Cosworth	1:42.086
22	Timo Glockenspiel	Virgin-Cosworth	1:42.140
23	Karun Chandhok	HRT-Cosworth	1:42.600
24	Bruno Senna	HRT-Cosworth	1:42.851

Nope.  Vettel came up off the mat and slugged his way to his first pole in a while, much to the annoyance of his teammate, Mark Webber.  There appears to have been a huge wedge driven between their relationship; they completely ignored each other in the time just after the session and during interviews.  It used to be that they would shake each other's hand, joke around, that sort of thing.  That could prove telling later in the season.

The surprise of the session has to be the performance of Williams.  They got both of their cars into Q3 for the first time this year, and last year's winner here, Rubens Barrichello, was outqualified by his substantially less experienced teammate.  Nice job, guys. 

For a while there, Robert Kubica looked as if he would be the one to punt the traditional to the curb.  Alas, it was not to be, as the oomph of the big teams came out late in Q3.  Still, for a minute there... ah well, so it goes.

Most amusing to me was the struggles of one Slappy Schumacher.  He only just managed to get out of Q1, and as can be seen above, didn't accomplish the task in Q2, finishing quite low in the session.  His teammate, Nico Rosberg, also failed to make it out of Q2, making one wonder if Mercedes has "lost the plot" all of a sudden.  One could argue that they never actually had the plot, but that's for another day. 

Force India hasn't lost the plot, but they have lost the spending war.  As the other big teams have made huge improvements (blown rear wings, moving their exhausts, etc etc etc), FI hasn't been able to spend the cash to do the same.  The result, of course, is that they're no longer likely to make it to Q3.  Darn shame, that.
 
And in the battle of the cripples, Lotus continues their dominance.  Please note that all the new teams would have made the race under next year's 107% rule, by a couple of seconds to boot.  So much for that.

Race tomorrow on Fox, meaning I won't be watching it until 11am Pond Central time... F1U! will be sometime thereafter.  See ya then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 02:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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