That was certainly the best qualifying session I have seen in terms of its mixture of craziness, satisfaction and fairness.
I recall some quite crazy qualifying sessions that have delivered bizarre results - the one at Spa many years ago when all the top teams got caught in the rain thanks to their arrogance, and I think Rubens Barrichello took the pole position in a Jordan or a Stewart or something (forgive me for not researching that, but this is a blog, not a news story, so I’m just talking off the top of my head), and there have been other such sessions with surprise results due to fluke conditions.
But at the Nurburgring today the rain chose to come around only during the second of the three part qualifying session and it provided us all with a lot of fun as we watched an insane race for the drivers to make it into the top 10 or be eliminated. Then those that made it to the top 10 had to do a real, regular shootout. And the only real contender in my opinion who was knocked out of the second session thanks to the conditions, was Fernando Alonso. And the only real non-contender to make it into the final session was Adrian Sutil in the Force India. But he then went on to finish seventh!
In any event, I will now simply paste into this post the notes I took live during qualifying, so that you can possibly share my excitement with me as I watched this bizarre session unfold. So if you are looking for any amount of polish to the writing, please stop reading here, for I am only giving you notes to myself:
The second session has begun and all the cars go out on slicks as quickly as they can but….
Massa and Nakajima slide off the track – first lap…. the rain has suddenly begun to pour down…
Kovalainain wipes out and possibly damages the car as he hits the barrier….
All the cars return to the pits and it will be raining through what seems will be the entire second session after they do all they can to get out all of them on slicks and they cannot make the first lap even. And thank goodness for the spectacle because here we have no one who lucks into the pole totally but just skill racing on the wet.
The fastest laps exchanging at the top of the time sheets one after the other… but I suddenly remember this is the second session and the only thing worth watching is the 11th to 15th positions. And Kovalainen goes back to the pits and has a pit stop and so will not ruin his chances totally and qualify in 15th.
The rain is easing up toward the end, now. And suddenly from 15th Barrichello goes out on slicks and Hamilton is fitting into slicks too and suddenly they all need to have slicks if they are not to finish outside the top 10. So with three minutes left it is a race back to the pits to use slicks again as Barrichello did the fastest lap and was more than three seconds faster than Webber’s time in second.
In this game with a minute and a half left suddenly Piquet is second fastest! And then Alonso is out there in ninth and he spins out and has just over one minute to try to do a lap again as it is still raining again and then a Ferrari goes off the track as the rain as starts again and Sutil is third fastest.
And Rosberg is thirteenth and then moves to cross the line and gets another lap and Hamilton is twelfth and moves to sixth! He gets in just under the wire - Hamilton who had been leading all weekend.
And Alonso is the biggest victim because he finishes 12th because of a spin and he had been one of the fastest all weekend.
WOW!!!!
Q3:
…. And then the sun came out. And the casualties had not been THAT many, but unfortunately we had been deprived of Alonso, who seemed a certain contender.
At this rate, we hoped now that there would be NO rain in the final session so that with three minutes left other drivers could fight out the pole. There was Sutil up in seventh, though, in an amazing effort, considering Fisichella was in 18th! And with 2 minutes left, suddenly Sutil was in fourth!! And we hoped now that perhaps things would not change, and there was Hamilton and Button in 10th and ninth… but then suddenly Button does the fastest first sector with a minute and a half left or a bit more.
And then HAMILTON gets the provisional pole and Button second and then Barrichello second and then Vettel is on a faster lap and Webber is going at the same time and doing even better than Vettel…. And Webber gets the provisional pole as Vettel does a bad lap and makes some mistakes and is second. But Button is still running for it and he moves into second for a bit and then Barrichello moves into second!
Amazing result with Webber on his first ever pole position and then the two Brawns, Barrichello in second, and then Vettel and then Hamilton and then Kovalainen and then SUTIL in seventh!
“That session was madness, q2,” said Button. “When you chuck a bit of water in there it’s quite difficult. Tomorrow is going to be an interesting one, the weather is looking similar to today, and with a little bit of luck.”
For Barrichella, who is racing in his 280th Grand Prix, was it his craziest session?
“I had some crazy ones in the past but it’s always the more recent one that counts,” he said “You were not breathing throughout the whole session, we got out of the car and we started breathing again.”
“Twelve degrees in mid July – this is worse than England,” said Button. “Who says English weather is bad?”
Here are the results:
1. Webber Red Bull-Renault 2. Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes 3. Button Brawn-Mercedes 4. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 5. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 6. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 7. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 8. Massa Ferrari 9. Raikkonen Ferrari 10. Piquet Renault 11. Heidfeld BMW-Sauber 12. Alonso Renault 13. Nakajima Williams-Toyota 14. Trulli Toyota 15. Rosberg Williams-Toyota 16. Kubica BMW-Sauber 17. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 18. Fisichella Force India-Mercedes 19. Glock Toyota 20. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari
Comente