F1 Quals: Germany 2013

As with Friday Practice here at the Nurb Jr, once again there were no issues with tires pretending to be bombs, for which we are eternally grateful.  There was, unfortunately, another issue with a Williams KERS unit pretending to be a campfire.  About two hours before Practice 3, the KERS unit for Maldonado's car burst into flames in the Williams garage area.  With the help of Force India mechanics, who were practicing pit stops at the time, the fire was extinguished with minimal damage.  One would think that the Williams drivers will be somewhat skittish about pressing the "go fast" button tomorrow in the race, that's for sure.  Speaking of which, let's take a look at the provisional grid for the 2013 Grand Prix of Germany:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Shiv Hamilton	Mercedes	1:31.131	1:30.152	1:29.398
2	Hannibal Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:31.269	1:29.992	1:29.501
3	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:31.428	1:30.217	1:29.608
4	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	1:30.676	1:29.852	1:29.892
5	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:31.242	1:30.005	1:29.959
6	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	1:31.081	1:30.223	1:30.528
7	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:30.547	1:29.825	1:31.126
8	HWMNBN	Ferrari	1:30.709	1:29.962	1:31.209
9	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:31.181	1:30.269	No Time
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber-Ferrari	1:31.132	1:30.231	No Time
11	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:31.322	1:30.326
12	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:31.322	1:30.697
13	Sergio Perez	McLaren-Mercedes	1:31.498	1:30.933
14	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:31.681	1:31.010
15	Adrian F'n Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:31.320	1:31.010
16	Jules Vergne	STR-Ferrari	1:31.629	1:31.104
17	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Renault	1:31.693
18	Goði Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1:31.707
19	Charles Pic	Caterham-Renault	1:32.937
20	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Cosworth	1:33.063
21	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham-Renault	1:33.734
22	Max Chilton	Marussia-Cosworth	1:34.098

Shiv Hamilton was the last guy on track and shot down Hannibal Vettel's pole-sitting time with a blisteringly hot lap, depriving the German the pole for his home race... again.  Meanwhile, Hamilton's teammate Nico Rosberg was bounced out of Qualifying in Q2 in what was just a simple case of overconfidence.  See, Rosberg had set a perfectly reasonable time on his first run in the session, the team brought him in for a new set of tires, pulled him into the garage, as is normal, to perform little adjustments, get the fuel level exactly where they wanted it... and there he sat, in the car, waiting to go out for his second run.  And he sat.  And sat.  Then, once it was too late for him to do an out lap and get around to the start/finish line to begin a hot lap, times began tumbling.  He fell from, if memory serves, 2nd on the time sheet to tenth with only one car left on track: Kimi Raikkonen, at the time sitting in 14th.  Yep, that didn't work out for Rosberg at all.  Raikkonen jumped above Rosberg, bumping him out of the session.  Rosberg, ever the gracious driver, later threw the team under the bus, blaming them for the mistake and whining that he's got no chance to do anything in the race now.

The Force India boys just sneered at him.

If there's a team to watch out for in the race, it's Ferrari.  Everybody ahead of them are starting on the soft tire, which are expected to last maybe 10 laps.  The red cars, however, are on the medium rubber, which seem to run for 25 or so before giving up the ghost.  They're also maybe a second a lap slower.  IF, and that may be a big "if", Ferrari can stay close to the front group, they'll be able to make up the time in the pitstops.

The race is Sunday morning, and F1U! will be along sometime afterwards.  See you then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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