F1 Quals: JAPAN 2008!

If you're McLaren or Lewis Hamilton, that quals session went exactly how you'd want it to.  If you're Ferrari or Felipe Massa, you're beating your head against the steering wheel... and wondering if your Championship chances just went out the window.

Let's take a look at the provisional grid:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:18.071	1:17.462	1:18.404
2	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:18.160	1:17.733	1:18.644
3	Heikki Kovalaineninnie	McLaren-Mercedes	1:18.220	1:17.360	1:18.821
4	HWMNBN	Renault	1:18.290	1:17.871	1:18.852
5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:18.110	1:17.287	1:18.874
6	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:18.684	1:17.931	1:18.979
7	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:18.501	1:17.541	1:19.026
8	Timo Glock	Toyota	1:17.945	1:17.670	1:19.118
9	Sebastian Vettel	STR-Ferrari	1:18.559	1:17.714	1:19.638
10	SeaBass	STR-Ferrari	1:18.593	1:18.102	1:20.167
11	David Coulthard's Chin	Red Bull-Renault	1:18.303	1:18.187
12	Nelson Piquet Jr	Renault	1:18.300	1:18.274
13	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:18.372	1:18.354
14	Kazoo Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1:18.640	1:18.594
15	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:18.740	1:18.672
16	Grizzly Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:18.835
17	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:18.882
18	Jenson Button	Honda	1:19.100
19	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	1:19.163
20	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	1:19.910

Hamilton has Pole Position, and Ferrari's drivers are reversed from the way the team would have wanted them.  Throw in Heikki and HWMNBN as a buffer between Hamilton and Massa, and suddenly this is looking like a desperate situation for the Brazillian driver's championship hopes.  Essentially, it's the perfect situation for Lewis.

Now, it might be that Massa is heavy on fuel, but I don't think so.  He was just too fast earlier... it feels like he was just beaten.  Now, the Renault of HWMNBN is probably a little light on gas, but Heikki almost surely isn't. 

The Toyotas certainly put on a good show, with Der Glockenspiel being right up at the top of the charts until Q3.  Who knows if it's real speed, or low-fuel speed?  Robert Kubica's faint chances for a championship are still alive, but on life-support.  He has to win out and hope that the guys ahead of him both break down... not likely.

Notable is the fact that both Toro Rossos made it to Q3.  They've really come alive; seems like they've finally gotten their car dialed in.  Could we be seeing the birth of a new member of the Big Teams?  Or will the Minardi-child slump back next year? 

Of course, Honda blew chunks.  Force India is just bad, but that's what you expect from a new startup like them (yes, yes, I know: "Jordan/Midland/Spyker", but still...).  But what in the world is Grizzly Nick doing down there, unable to get out of Q1?  Very odd.

Well, we'll see what happens tomorrow at the race.  Looks like the weather will be good, if a little cool.  That'll favor the McLarens a touch, as the Ferrari uses their tires better when the track is warmer.

We've already had seven different winning drivers for five different teams.  Since I started writing about F1 (with e-mails to Official First Reader Mallory, in 2004), there's never been so many winning drivers and teams in a season.  Could you imagine Toyota winning finally?  Of all the teams that haven't won, they're the most likely to do so.  Mind you, that's not likely, but as we saw in Singapore, luck plays a part.  See you Sunday morning!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:52 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 557 words, total size 11 kb.