I woke up to a perfect Saturday morning: Formula 1 action enjoyed with a lot of coffee! Once again I had high hopes for Vettel as Sebastian had been second fastest in the final practice session in the morning... I also kept my fingers crossed for Kimi that he could get the maximum out of his car as he was hit a 5-place grid penalty due to a gearbox change yesterday...
Q1 held no surprises, neither negative nor positive ones! Unfortunately it was no real surprise to me that Caterham was once again out of Q2! It must be quite frustrating for Heikki, I mean he´s considered to be a highly talented and skillful driver and still his team hasn´t been able to show any kind of improvement from last year :( In my opinion Heikki would definitely deserve better! In Formula 1 it doesn´t unfortunately help no matter how good a driver you are if you have a lousy car... The midfield is still out of Caterham´s reach!
Q2 turned out to be a Kimi Räikkönen show! At the beginning of the second 15-minute session Kimi was able to set a mesmerising fastest lap time which lasted at the top until the end of the Q2! At Albert Park last week Kimi failed at the qualifying due to his own mistake and a communication issue but today we saw a glimpse of Kimi´s real pace! The Iceman is back!! All his rivals should be wary of that tomorrow when the race starts!
The result of the Q2 today proves the current pecking order pretty clearly: the four top teams at the moment are McLaren, Mercedes, Lotus and Red Bull. Both drivers of these teams made it to the Q3 today. Alonso with Ferrari and Perez with Sauber completed the top ten today. There has been a lot of talk about the innovative F duct used by Mercedes but despite the controversial device neither Nico nor Schumi was able to snatch pole today! Second pole of the season for Hamilton and Button made it a front row lock-out for McLaren. Schumacher was able to outdo his team-mate by taking P3 leaving Nico 8th. The Red Bull driver Webber starts alongside Schumi tomorrow. Kimi managed to set 5th fastest time in Q3. According to his own words he could have fought for pole without some little mistakes on his last attempt... The penalty puts the Iceman in P10 tomorrow but I´m sure we´re going to see lots of aggressive overtaking by the Iceman tomorrow!! :)
Vettel was 6th fastest today and had a different tyre choice from his rivals in Q3. Vettel set his lap time on the hard compound whereas all the others in top ten used the medium tyres. Vettel was far from satiesfied after the qualifying and he said he couldn´t get all out of his car today. The tyre choice may turn out to be a clever choice tomorrow as the medium tyres are less durable than the hard ones... I haven´t seen Vettel so serious after qualifying for a looong time! Red Bull really seems to be struggling with the performance of the RB8... The glorious moments of the last season are definitely over for Red Bull and they have to improve a lot! Still I´m expecting to see a strong race from Sebastian tomorrow! In Australia he also started from P6 and finished 2nd so I don´t see why he couldn´t reach podium tomorrow as well :)
Last December when I wrote about Sebastian´s trainer Tommi Pärmäkoski deciding not to continue his work as Seb´s trainer in 2012 I speculated if the decision would have some kind of an effect on Sebastian´s career. I can´t help thinking about that now. Now when the era of the exhaust blown diffusers is over Red Bull´s dominance has also vanished. It means they have to work very hard and improve a lot if they want to achieve victories during this season. So Sebastian has to struggle much more than during last season. And the change of the trainer... I don´t question Heikki Huovinen´s competence, not at all, but Tommi and Sebastian just seemed to be the perfect team...! And Tommi made Sebastian get the best out of him as a driver... I hope the team work between Heikki and Sebastian works as perfectly but still I would say that it´s extremely difficult to replace Tommi! Formula 1 is a huge puzzle which consists of both smaller and bigger pieces... All pieces have to match before you can succeed. Though the trainer doesn´t drive the car I would say that he still has a significant role behind the success. As the season goes forward I guess we´ll see how things evolve... Hope all the pieces in the puzzle of Sebastian´s successful season will match as soon as possible!
What to expect from tomorrow´s race...? The McLarens will be very fast. Button stronger than Hamilton... The heat is overwhelming so technical issues may play a significant role. Sebastian´s strategy tyre-wise sounds promising and I rely on Kimi putting up a good show!
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