F1 Quals: Singapore 2016

This is the point where I would normally say "a warm, humid night greeted the assembled horde of the F1 Circus as they prepared for Quals for the 2016 Grand Prix of Singapore," but this race, there's a small problem.  To whit... I haven't seen quals.  And there's every chance in the world that I'm going to miss the race as well.  The satellite feed from Pond Central's apartment complex is, apparently, on the fritz.  Signal strength is... um... variable, leaning heavily towards the "signal unavailable" end of the spectrum.  However, it's not consistent in any way: early last night I couldn't watch jack squat, but the DVR still (successfully) recorded Legacy 59 later.  So who knows?  Maybe maintenance will clear leaves off the master dish before then.  Or retrieve it from the swimming pool.  It's also possible that my receiver is dying, I guess.  Either way, my race watching is threatened, and I won't know until it happens.  So here's the provisional grid:

Pos	Driver	Car	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:45.316	1:43.020	1:42.584
2	Smiley Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1:44.255	1:43.933	1:43.115
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:45.167	1:43.471	1:43.288
4	Embryo Verstappen	Red Bull Racing	1:45.036	1:44.112	1:43.328
5	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:44.964	1:44.159	1:43.540
6	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:45.499	1:44.493	1:44.197
7	Kid Kvyat	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:45.291	1:44.475	1:44.469
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India Mercedes	1:46.081	1:44.737	1:44.479
9	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	1:45.373	1:44.653	1:44.553
10	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:45.204	1:44.703	1:44.582
11	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Mercedes	1:46.086	1:44.740
12	Retiree Massa	Williams Mercedes	1:46.056	1:44.991
13	Leave of Absence Button	McLaren Honda	1:45.262	1:45.144
14	Esteban!	Haas Ferrari	1:45.465	1:45.593
15	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:45.609	1:45.723
16	Sony Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:46.427	1:47.827
17	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:46.825
18	FelipeNot Massa Nasr	Sauber Ferrari	1:46.860
19	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:46.960
20	Pascal's Wehrlein	MRT Mercedes	1:47.667
21	False Esteban	MRT Mercedes	1:48.296
22	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:49.116

Seb Vettel had a broken anti-roll bar (sway bar here in the US), with predictable results:

Every turn reportedly saw the inside front wheel coming off the ground with the attendant loss of traction.  That 1:49.116 really was the best he could do, and the team couldn't get him repaired before Q1 ended.

The big news is the performance of the Red Bulls, both of whom will be starting on the Super-soft tires.  They were nearly as quick as the Mercedes, who will be starting the race on the Ultra-softs.  At least on paper, advantage Red Bull, as their tires will last longer.  If they can stay in touch with the silver cars, it'll be a very interesting race indeed.

Let's just hope I'll get to see it.  The F1Update! is thus in doubt... if I get the race, we're golden.  If not... well.  We'll just have to play that by ear, won't we?  See you whenever!

UPDATE: Just found out about this!  Y'know how in Canada we had the Montreal Marmot Massacre?  Apparently, Singapore has its own problems, as Embryo Verstappen discovered tonight:

Yes, really. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:13 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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