September 17, 2016

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
Post contains 520 words, total size 18 kb.

1 Is that a crocodile, or a monitor?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 17, 2016 02:35 PM (+rSRq)

2 I'm guessing a Monitor.  From the size, I'd say it's probably Erebus-class.

Posted by: Wonderduck at September 17, 2016 03:07 PM (vZvpB)

3 Ba-dum tiss.

Posted by: Ben at September 17, 2016 03:58 PM (B1bvu)

4 Wonderduck, I've responded to your email.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 17, 2016 05:07 PM (+rSRq)

5 I agree that must be a monitor. For one thing a crocodile has a longer head and bigger jaws. But even more so, I don't believe that the government of Singapore would allow crocodiles to be running around on their island. If there were ever crocs there (likely) they probably got hunted out a long time ago.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 17, 2016 06:28 PM (+rSRq)

6 Come on, he was just monitoring the situation.

Posted by: A Bear at September 17, 2016 11:23 PM (pvHl3)

7 There are saltwater crocodiles in Singapore; their range stretches from east India to northern Australia.  Not many since Singapore is urban and densely populated, but they swim over from Malaysia and repopulate often enough that they haven't been hunted out.

But yeah, that's a monitor lizard of some sort.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 20, 2016 10:38 PM (2yngH)

Hide Comments | Add Comment




What colour is a green orange?




43kb generated in CPU 0.0221, elapsed 0.317 seconds.
49 queries taking 0.3015 seconds, 242 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.