F1 Quals: Valencia 2008!

With the sky ominous and occasionally sprinkling, the track at Valencia really seemed to come alive for today's qualifying session.  As predicted, the new circuit played hob with all teams, throwing their usual precise machinations into a cocked hat.  As an example, McLaren almost always manages to get their drivers on the course last in the closing stages of Q3.  This is a great advantage, as they then know exactly what they have to do to get pole, and can see what the other teams are doing ahead of their cars.

Not today.  Lewis Hamilton went out near the middle of the pack, allowing the Ferraris, the BMW of Robert Kubica, and his own teammate to snipe away at his final time.  The provisional grid looks like this:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:38.176	1:37.859	1:38.989
2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.464	1:37.954	1:39.199
3	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:38.347	1:38.050	1:39.392
4	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:38.703	1:38.229	1:39.488
5	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.656	1:38.120	1:39.937
6	Sebastian Vettel	STR-Ferrari	1:38.141	1:37.842	1:40.142
7	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:37.948	1:37.928	1:40.309
8	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:38.738	1:37.859	1:40.631
9	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:38.595	1:38.336	1:40.721
10	SeaBass	STR-Ferrari	1:38.622	1:38.417	1:40.750
11	Kazoo Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1:38.667	1:38.428
12	HWMNBN	Renault	1:38.268	1:38.435
13	Timo Glock	Toyota	1:38.532	1:38.499
14	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:38.559	1:38.515
15	Nelson Piquet	Renault	1:38.787	1:38.744
16	Jenson Button	Honda	1:38.880
17	David Coulthard's Chin	Red Bull-Renault	1:39.235
18	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	1:39.268
19	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:39.811
20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	1:39.943

While only Massa managed to beat out Hamilton's final time, it sure wasn't for lack of trying by the other drivers.  Massa, Kubica, Kimi and Heikki all came home after Hamilton claimed provisional pole.  McLaren had to be gnawing their fingernails to the quick when the others were throwing up fast sectors all over the place.

The surprise of the day has to be Sebastian Vettel and Toro Rosso.  Both of the team's cars made it to Q3, with Vettel ending up 2nd fastest in Q1, and fastest of all in Q2.  SeaBass, historically no slouch at all on street courses, also did a nice job though the Q3 results don't show it.  The disappointment, though, had to be the senior Red Bull team of Webbo and The Chin.  Either their engines just don't put out the horsepower to deal with their junior team, or their drivers were intimidated by the track.  Whichever way you look at it, a bad day for them for sure.

So a new track, a new face on row three, and a BMW between the Red Team and the Glare With Wheels.  Should be an interesting run to turn 2 tomorrow!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:05 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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