I actually didn´t know what to expect from today´s qualifying. I was afraid Red Bull would face a tough qualifying as their straight line speed was the slowest of all in the free practices. I knew I couldn´t afford taking it for granted that Vettel would even make it in to Q3... But I trusted in Sebastian with all my heart and I knew he would do everything he can to be in top ten! On the other hand I had high hopes for Lotus, especially Kimi. At Spa they had also suffered from not having enough straight line speed but the team had fixed the issue for Monza and D´Ambrosio replacing Grosjean had the highest speed on the straights!
Force India had shown very promising pace in the free practices but Hulkenberg had a car failure in Q1 and he wasn´t able to set a lap time so he was naturally out of Q2. Ferrari seemed to be flying at Monza in front of the tifosi! Alonso topped the time sheets after Q1 so I knew he was going to be a strong contender for pole...
Alonso dominated Q2 as well. It seemed that the battle for pole was going to be between the McLaren drivers and Alonso. In spite of the impressive straight line speed Lotus didn´t seem competitive enough to fight for a front row position. As expected, D´Ambrosio didn´t manage to make his way through to Q3. There were some surprise names knocked out of the final session as well. Webber at the wheel of RB8 just fell short of Q3 after his eleventh position on the time sheets at the end of Q2. Maldonado was out of Q3 as well. He qualified 12th but he will be dropped back to 22nd on the grid due to his penalties from the previous race. Perez didn´t make it to the top ten, either which I found a bit surprising because the Mexican has performed pretty well during this season. I was relieved to see both Sebastian and Kimi among the ten fastest!
When Q3 got underway I was very worried that Alonso might well conquer pole this time... But no, not this time. He had a mechanical fault in his car at the rear axle rod which made him 1,5 seconds slower than he had been in the first two sessions! Hamilton instead pulled out an awesome lap and made it easily on pole today! It turned out to be a front row lock-out for McLaren as Button qualified 2nd today. Massa was 3rd fastest which can be considered quite a surprise! Di Resta in Force India qualified 4th but due to a gear box change he got a five-place grid penalty and will start from 9th tomorrow. Although Red Bull´s performance didn´t look so promising in the free practices Seb will still start from P5! Mercedes were extremely competitive and fast today. Schumi will start in front of Seb and Nico right behind him. Kimi will be in P7 tomorrow. Lotus´s race pace is strong so I´m definitely expecting some good points for Kimi in the race!
As you might have noticed by now I´m not a huge fan of Alonso and also because the Spaniard is the most dangerous opponent in the championship battle I was very glad that the Ferrari driver was left 10th today! Iam counting firmly on Seb´s possibilities to finish on the podium tomorrow! Mercedes have had problems with their tyre degradation so I don´t think their performance in the race will be as good as in the qualifying. I am afraid the McLaren duo might be unbeatable tomorrow but what I´m hoping for the most is that Seb will score more points than Alonso at the wheel of his Prancing Horse! The bigger the difference in points tomorrow the better! Now is the time to achieve the best possible result! So I´m expecting Seb to drive flat out and show his passionate fans some staggering and undescribable overtaking manoeuvres!
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