Saturday, 8 October 2011

2011 Japanese Grand Prix - Qualifying

Sebastian Vettel took another Pole Position in 2011, as he gets even closer to a second Driver's World Championship. He beat the McLaren drivers of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton who took second and third.

In Q1, the biggest talking point was Nico Rosberg dropping out in qualifying. Nico never did a lap time due a hydrolics issue, a result of which left him in 23rd place, only ahead of Liuzzi, who didn't do a lap time either. These two were joined by the rest of the "new teams". At the front, Kobayashi gave Japan something to chear about by putting his car in 1st place, though with a set a softer tyres.

Q2 began with the bigger teams trading blows at the top of the timing board. Lewis Hamilton took 1st in Q2, beating of the Red Bull's and Button. The top 6 safey made it through, along with Schumacher in 7th. With 2 minutes to go, it was Toro Rosso who hadboth cars in the Top 10; however, both decided not to go out. This decision left them helpless to Senna, Petrov and Kobayashi who pushed them out.

Q3 was all about tyres. Throughout qualifying, teams were struggling with quick tyres degredation, and were not pushing at all on their in-lap and out-lap. Half of the remaining 5 also chose to only do 1 flying lap, and Senna, Petrov & Kobayashi chose not to do a flying lap at all. This left the top 7 to battle it out for pole. After the first set of laps, Hamilton was on prilemry pole, ahead of Button and Vettel. With seconds left on the clock, drivers were scrambling to get onto their flying laps, and ensuring that they were the last driver on the track. In the final chicane, a slow Hamilton was ambushed by Schumacher and Webber, who were desperatly trying to squeeze a flying lap in the remaining time. The chaos left Schumacher and Hamilton with no time to set a flying lap, as they were beaten by the chequered flag by seconds. Of those that had beaten the flag, it was Sebastian Vettel who beat Jenson Button by 0.009 seconds. They beat Hamilton's time, pushing him down to third.

Tomorrow's Grid
Pos -Driver - Team - Rank
1 - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull - 1
2 - Jenson Button - McLaren - 5
3 - Lewis Hamilton - McLaren - 3
4 - Felipe Massa - Ferrari - 6
5 - Fernando Alonso - Ferrari - 4
6 - Mark Webber - Red Bull - 2
7 - Michael Schumacher - Mercedes - 11
8 - Bruno Senna - Renault - 27
9 - Vitaly Petrov - Renault - 13
10 - Kamui Kobayashi - Sauber - 15
11 - Adrian Sutil - Force India - 9
12 - Paul Di Resta - Force India - 20
13 - Rubens Barrichello - Williams - 8
14 - Pastor Maldonado - Williams - 24
15 - Sebastian Buemi - Toro Rosso - 12
16 - Jaime Alguersuari - Toro Rosso - 16
17 - Sergio Perez - Sauber - 25
18 - Heikki Kovalainen - Lotus - 18
19 - Jarno Trulli - Lotus - 17
20 - Jerome D'Ambrosio - Virgin - 30
21 - Timo Glock - Virgin - 21
22 - Daniel Ricciardo - HRT - 38
23 - Nico Rosberg - Mercedes - 7
24 - Vitantonio Liuzzi - HRT - 23

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