Saturday, 26 November 2011

2011 Brazilian Gand Prix - Qualifying

Sebastian Vettel took his final pole position of the year but a dominating display at Sao Paulo. He beat off Mark Webber and both McLaren drivers to break Nigel Mansell's record for most Poles in one season.

Q1 started with most people worrying about the weather. A rain cloud was not far away, and with teams determined to not get caught out, the first five minutes of Q1 was manic. Everyone was out setting fast lap times, however, no one was caught out. The normal order was being arranged, and the drivers fighting to get out of Q1 seemed to be Maldonado, Buemi and Kobayashi. With the chequered flag out, no was improving their lap times, leaving Maldonado as the first "scalp" of the qualfiying session.

In Q2, it was the usual suspects again who were fighting in the midfield. But, at the top, Vettel was leading Nico Rosberg who had set a great lap time and give Mercedes a little something to look forward to in the final qualifying stage. It did nearly seem that Mercedes would have the one car in Q3, with Schumacher struggling and fighting with the Force Indias for that 10th place. In the end, Schumacher made it in, along with Sutil and Senna. This left DiResta in 11th, and with a slight uphill battle for tomorrow. Barrichello did well to take 12th, in what could be his last ever qualifying session.

Q3 was all about one man - Sebastian Vettel. With one fast lap set by 6 drivers(Vettel, Webber, Hamilton, Button, Alonso & Rosberg), Vettel lead the way by over half a second. McLaren and Webber were not far behind, and Rosberg was close to Ferrari's pace. However, on the second flying laps, Vettel blitzed his time, and became the first driver to do a 1:11 all weekend. He takes his 15th pole position of the year, beating Mansell's 14 in 1992. Mark Webber lines up second, for a Red Bull 1-2. Button out-qualified Hamilton, and Rosberg managed to beat one Ferrari, to take 6th.

Grid For Tomorrow
Pos - Driver - Team - Rank
1 - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull - 1
2 - Mark Webber - Red Bull - 2
3 - Jenson Button - McLaren - 4
4 - Lewis Hamilton - McLaren - 3
5 - Fernando Alonso - Ferrari - 5
6 - Nico Rosberg - Mercedes - 7
7 - Felipe Massa - Ferrari - 6
8 - Adrian Sutil - Force India - 9
9 - Bruno Senna - Renault - 26
10 - Michael Schumacher - Mercedes - 10
11 - Paul Di Resta - Force India - 17
12 - Rubens Barrichello - Williams - 8
13 - Jaime Alguersuari - Toro Rosso - 12
14 - Sebastian Buemi - Toro Rosso - 13
15 - Vitaly Petrov -Renault - 11
16 - Kamui Kobayashi - Sauber - 15
17 - Sergio Perez - Sauber - 21
18 - Pastor Maldonado - Williams - 24
19 - Heikki Kovalainen - Lotus - 19
20 - Jarno Trulli - Lotus - 18
21 - Vitantonio Liuzzi - HRT - 23
22 - Daniel Ricciardo - HRT - 35
23 - Jerome D'Ambrosio - Virgin - 29
24 - Timo Glock - Virgin - 20

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