F1 Quals: Germany 2008!

Something weird happened in Q3 today: Kimi Raikkonen gave up on a qual lap after grabbing P2.  2nd sounds pretty good, no?  The problem was, there were still a bunch of other cars on track in the middle of hot laps.  The result?  Well, let's look at the provisional grid:

1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:15.218	1:14.603	1:15.666
2	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:14.921	1:14.747	1:15.859
3	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:15.476	1:14.855	1:16.143
4	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:15.560	1:15.122	1:16.191
5	HWMNBN	Renault	1:15.917	1:14.943	1:16.385
6	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:15.201	1:14.949	1:16.389
7	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:15.985	1:15.109	1:16.521
8	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:15.900	1:15.481	1:17.014
9	Sebastian Vettel	STR-Ferrari	1:15.532	1:15.420	1:17.244
10	David Coulthard's Chin	Red Bull-Renault	1:15.975	1:15.338	1:17.503
11	Timo Glock	Toyota	1:15.560	1:15.508
12	Grizzly Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:15.596	1:15.581
13	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:15.863	1:15.633
14	Jenson Button	Honda	1:15.993	1:15.701
15	SeaBass	STR-Ferrari	1:15.927	1:15.858
16	Kazoo Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1:16.083
17	Nelsinho Piquet	Renault	1:16.189
18	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:16.246
19	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	1:16.657
20	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	1:16.963

Yep, that's right.  From the 1st row to 3rd in just a few seconds.  Reports indicate that Ferrari just can't get the car dialed in when there's more than a little bit of fuel in it.  That's just not good, and it's going to be a loooooong night for the boys from Maranello. 

In other surprises, Jarno Trulli jumped from P10 to P4 on his last run, seemingly from out of nowhere.  He didn't show ANY signs of that happening this session, so one must wonder just how much fuel he's got in the Toyota.  The other big surprise is Sebastian Vettel's Toro Rosso making it into Q3.  Very unexpected, though he's been quick all weekend.  He's making Red Bull's decision to give him David Coulthard's Chin's seat in the Big Team next year look good.

Kubica was 14th at the end of Q1; both BMW-Saubers are having problems recently, and there's no obvious reason why.  Well, we'll see what happens.

The weather forecast is still a coinflip for race day.  About the only thing the forecasters are sure of is that it won't snow.  They think.

Interestingly, McLaren is running asymmetric radiator side vents this race.  I'll try to get a screenshot of it tomorrow.  See ya after the race!

UPDATE: The good folks at F1technical.net made a nice composite pic of the vents:

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:38 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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