It´s midsummer in Finland which means time of midnight sun. Before the qualifying I was sure there was some "midsummer magic" floating in the air also around the harbour-based Valencia street circuit.... And I happened to be quite right this time!
Already Q1 was surprising indeed. Who would have predicted that Red Bull´s Mark Webber couldn´t make it to the Q2? That was the case unfortunately. Webber missed almost the entire free practice 3 in the morning due to some brake problems in his car. In the qualifying his DRS didn´t work so it was simply impossible for the Australian to pull out a lap time decent enough to get through to Q2. This means he´ll face an extremely difficult race tomorrow as the circuit isn´t really known of good overtaking possibilities!
Heikki Kovalainen was responsible of a heart-warming surprise in Q1. He managed to make his way through to the Q2 and not only because of Webber´s misfortune. The flying angry bird managed to leave Toro Rosso´s Vergne behind him by driving! No wonder there´ve been rumours about Heikki getting a seat from Sauber or Ferrari next season...! No matter how slow the Caterham car is the Finn is unbelievably skilled in terms of driving! Well done Heikki :)
Q2 was at least as surprising as Q1. It was the tightest ever Q2 which we have seen in the time of the current qualifying regulations! The difference between the 1st and the 7th driver was only 81 thousandths of a second! I mean that´s unrealistically tight, much less than a blink of an eye! Alonso in his Ferrari pulled out a lap time 0,004 seconds too slow and was knocked out from Q3! Alonso wasn´t the only big-name driver to be out of the final section. Schumacher qualified 12th and Alonso´s team-mate Massa was 13th.
I was expecting a super intense battle for pole as the Q2 was so tight. The Q3, however, turned out to be a completely different story. The majority of the drivers made only one attempt. Sebastian Vettel´s flying lap was just perfect! He conquered the pole by 3,5 tenths! There was definitely some midsummer magic in his lap! Utterly amazing job after such a tight Q2! Hamilton completed the first row. Maldonado was able to snatch P3 which was a superb effort from the Williams driver. It seems Williams´s success is all about Maldonado´s achievements. Senna doesn´t seem to have the same performance or speed. The Brazilian was knocked out from Q3 and qualified 14th. If Senna´s lousy performances continue, I hope Williams will give Valtteri Bottas a race seat...
Maybe it was partly due to the hot conditions but both Lotus´s seemed to fly today! Grosjean qualified 4th followed by his team-mate Kimi in P5. Even more heat is predicted for tomorrow´s race and we already saw what happened in Bahrain where it was extremely hot, too... Kimi will start on the clean side of the track so I´m convinced that the Iceman will be able to overtake his French team-mate right at the start! The race pace of both Red Bull and McLaren is relatively good but how about tyre degradation? The previous races have been almost impossible to predict and so seems to be the case this time as well. There might be some dramatic moments in tomorrow´s race when the performance of the tyres will drop dramatically and there will be "off the cliff" situations. I just keep my fingers crossed that this won´t happen either to Sebastian or Kimi!! So it´s going to be all about the tyres tomorrow! Force India is a major question mark as well. Both Di Resta and Hulkenberg made it to the top ten but I don´t believe their race pace will be very convincing... Maldonado and Grosjean are drivers who could easily end up to a wall or a collision with somebody but on the other hand there´s a huge potential in those drivers, too...And will the Ferrari drivers especially Alonso be able to do something magical from the midfield tomorrow? The race pace is definitely there...
So it´s certainly going to be an interesting race tomorrow! Sebastian took his 33rd career pole today but this significant little detail doesn´t mean much tomorrow. Red Bull has to have a perfect strategy and Sebastian needs to drive a magical race otherwise the win isn´t there to be taken! But I don´t believe we´re going to see an 8th winner tomorrow. I put my faith in Sebastian and midsummer magic: I know he can make it! And I trust in Kimi that the Iceman manages to put up a good fight!
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