F1 Quals: Russia 2016

Choo-choo!  All aboard the Nico Rosberg hype traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain!  Here's the provisional grid for the 2016 Grand Prix of Mother Russia:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:36.119	1:35.337	1:35.417
2	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:36.555	1:36.623	1:36.123
3	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:37.746	1:37.140	1:36.536
4	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:36.976	1:36.741	1:36.663
5	Felipe Not Nasr Massa	Williams	1:37.753	1:37.230	1:37.016
6	Smiley Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1:38.091	1:37.569	1:37.125
7	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:38.006	1:37.282	1:37.212
8	Kid Kvyat	Red Bull Racing	1:38.265	1:37.606	1:37.459
9	Embryo Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:38.123	1:37.510	1:37.583
10	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:36.006	1:35.820	No Time
11	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:37.784	1:37.652
12	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:38.332	1:37.701
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:38.562	1:37.771
14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:37.971	1:37.807
15	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas	1:38.383	1:38.055
16	Esteban!	Haas	1:38.678	1:38.115
17	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:38.914
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:39.009
19	Felipe Not Massa Nasr	Sauber	1:39.018
20	Pascal's Wager	Manor	1:39.399
21	Rio Rainbow Gate	Manor	1:39.463
22	Sony Ericsson	Sauber	1:39.519

It's not enough that Rosberg is leading the Driver's Championship by a serious amount, no no... now his two most obvious challengers are suffering from technical failures, too!  Seb Vettel, who is nominally second on the grid, will be starting seventh after a gearbox change.  And Lewis Hamilton, Rosberg's teammate, set a comfortable time in Q2, then suffered a drastic loss of power from his engine.  At last report, the team was elbow deep in the back of the car despite it being in parc ferme.  This means that there's a good chance Hamilton will be starting from the back of the grid or the pit lane for the second race in a row... and we know how well that turned out last time.  Oh, as if that wasn't enough he might also get a penalty for not rejoining the track in the correct manner after running wide at one point.

It's difficult to see a scenario where Hamilton can recover from this awful start to the season to come back and win the driver's championship, but stranger things have happened.  However, Rosberg's lead is not a fluke; he's driving very well, and very very fast.  For example, look at the two Merc speeds in Q2: Rosberg 1:35.337, Hamilton 1:35.820.  A half-second faster?  That's no accident.

The rest of the grid is pretty standard.  It's possible that Haas has now found their true pace after the ridiculously wonderful first two races.  It's been expected that as the season rolled on, Haas would be unable to keep up with the march of upgrades, but boy, that happened fast!  Assuming, of course, that's what's going on here.

The McLarens, so miserable last year, are now looking like they've officially taken the next step to getting back to the top.  It can't happen soon enough if you ask me.  Force India is still twitching, which is something of a surprise considering the huge financial and legal problems Vijay Mallya has... he's $1.4billion in debt, a court in Mumbai issued a warrant for his arrest, the Indian government revoked his passport and has asked Britain to deport him.

The race is Sunday morning, F1U! will be along afterwards, and we'll see you then or thereabouts!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 01:07 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 550 words, total size 27 kb.