F1 Quals: Malaysia 2014

So last night's sleep event found me awake at 345am.  Oh, hey, I thought, I can catch the end of Quals.  I dragged myself out to the living room, turned on the TV and discovered, much to my surprise, that Q1 had begun just moments before!  Did I get the time wrong?  Confused, I checked the schedule... nope!  Q3 should have been ending.  Wha hoppen?

Oh.  Well, it is Malaysia, isn't it?  A one-hour delay was the result of most of the Malacca Strait being dumped on the racetrack, and it never entirely stopped at any time during Quals.  Which means a "who knows?" result?  Let's find out, here's the provisional grid:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:57.202	1:59.041	1:59.431
2	Hannibal Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:57.654	1:59.399	1:59.486
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:57.183	1:59.445	2:00.050
4	HWMNBN	Ferrari	1:58.889	2:01.356	2:00.175
5	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:58.913	2:00.147	2:00.541
6	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:59.257	2:01.532	2:01.218
7	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:58.883	2:00.839	2:01.712
8	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	2:00.358	2:02.094	2:02.213
9	Jules Vergne	STR-Renault	2:01.689	2:02.096	2:03.078
10	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	2:00.889	2:01.810	2:04.053
11	Kid Kvyat	STR-Renault	2:01.175	2:02.351
12	Esteban!	Sauber-Ferrari	2:01.134	2:02.369
13	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	2:00.047	2:02.460
14	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	2:00.076	2:02.511
15	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:59.709	2:02.756
16	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	2:00.202	2:02.885
17	Williams Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	2:02.074
18	Adrian F'n Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	2:02.131
19	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	2:02.702
20	Gandalf Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	2:03.595
21	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	2:04.388
22	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	2:04.407
	Q1 107% Time		2:05.385

Strangely enough, the grid isn't messed up.  It very much is about how you'd expect a dry Quals to end up.  Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Seb Vettel has been complaining this week about the sound of the engines, saying they sound "like sh*t."  He'd probably like the sound more if his lasted more than a few laps.  What I'm saying is that seeing him up in 2nd isn't anything to be concerned about... yet.  Reliability is more important than pace right now.

Jenson Button has got to be peeved.  At every turn McLaren screwed up his tire strategy.  "Hey, Jenson, let's send you out on Inters!"  I dunno, there are fish swimming on the front straight... "Nah, it'll be fine, trust us!"  Ohhhh-kay...  (one lap later) ... This isn't working very well.  "Okay, come in for Full Wets.  By the way, we expect the track to dry in a couple of minutes."  Sunuva.... okay, Inters again.  "We gave you an oxygen tank for when the deluge we're looking at on radar hits."  SPLOOSH.  (Button sobs uncontrollably)

Race in the morning... more rain is forecast, so who knows, maybe it'll be in the afternoon!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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