Before the qualifying I knew Red Bull were going to be strong because Vettel had been literally flying in all free practices! I was confident that even though I would miss the crucial Q3 and not see that live on TV I knew I could trust on Vettel conquering pole... I love the German Red Bull ace because he never seems to let me down! ;) Not this time either!
No surprises in Q1. Except a rarely seen mistake from the Finnish Caterham driver Heikki Kovalainen who spun on the track and got beaten by his team-mate Petrov. And this isn´t the first time at the end of the season when Petrov has been quicker than the Finn. In a couple of first practices Heikki´s car has been driven by the team´s reserve driver Giedo van der Garde. This could mean something in terms of Heikki´s race seat for next year... I hope it does! I would love to see Heikki driving for some midfield team and fighting for points next season!
Kimi´s pace had seemed brilliant in the last free practice session in the morning but clearly something had changed when the qualifying got underway. Kimi seemed to be lacking grip and he had to fight hard to set competitive lap times. Both Red Bulls were flying and it seemed there was no one who could really challenge them. The first man to be knocked out of the final session was Kimi´s team-mate Grosjean who had seemed to be struggling the whole weekend. Senna had shown some excellent pace in the practices but still he wasn´t able to make it in to the Q3 whilst his team-mate Maldonado managed to qualify among the top ten.
Then after the Q2 it was time to leave home! I headed to a swimming hall to attend some zumba, aquazumba and water bike classes! You can just imagine how nervous I was when I was driving there and all I could think of was how Vettel was doing on the track... I kept hoping that Kimi would make it on the second row as his pace had been sooo excellent in the morning. I had to phone my husband from the swimming hall and ask what had happened in the crucial Q3...
Sebastian was soooo worth trusting to again! The super fast German managed to take pole but was only 44 thousandths of a second faster than his Australian team-mate. Quicker than him anyway and that´s all that really counts! The McLarens conquered the second row Hamilton being the faster one of the McLaren duo. Both Ferraris qualified on the third row, Alonso being 5th and Massa 6th. Kimi qualified down in seventh which was a huge disappointment for the Iceman himself. Kimi has been kicking himself for taking a wrong decision to change the set-up to his car before the qualifying which hurt Lotus pretty badly. He said he was really disappointed in himself. So the Iceman will probably face a tough race. But I do hope the high fuel and track conditions will help him find the speed he had on Saturday morning! What I like about Kimi is his honesty. He doesn´t try to find any excuses for his lack of success but he admits his mistakes and takes responsibility of his own actions. And as I started writing about Kimi I have to tell you how much I admire the guy for his ability to adapt and learn new circuits! I mean the guy doesn´t even walk them around beforehand, he simply jumps into his car on Friday morning and starts driving around the circuit... And goes extremely fast right from the very first moment! That´s absolutely unique, you have to respect a talent like that! :)
What will happen in the race then...? Right this moment there´s a probably false sense of security floating in the air in terms of Sebastian´s possibilities to maintain his lead in the championship standings. Starting on pole with his team-mate alongside him and his most dangerous rival back on the 5th grid slot... But nothing is certain yet. Anything can happen in the race. And if Webber has any chance to fight for the victory today I know he will! There´s no team orders at Red Bull so they are free to fight for the victory and that´s the right way to do it. I trust to the Red Bull duo that they will play it fair and respect each other on the track!
What about Ferrari, Alonso especially? I know their pace will be better than in the qualifying. And their race strategy is usually very good... Will Massa and Alonso use slipstreaming like they did in the qualifying? I have quite contradictory thoughts as far as Ferrari is concerned. Alonso has been doing a brilliant job this season and there´s no doubt about the fact that the Spaniard is one of the most talented drivers in F1 at the moment. But it´s just these things that Ferrari do as a team. This slipstreaming thing is one of them. Then there´s this use of team orders which catches my eye every time that happens! And the latest thing is that Ferrari have the Italian Navy flag on both of their cars in India (I´ve read many unclear explanations of the reasons why they have the flag on the cars but never actually understood the case...) But these are my thoughts only. Let the best and fastest man win today!
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