Kimi Räikkönen & Sebastian Vettel

Kimi Räikkönen & Sebastian Vettel

lauantai 6. lokakuuta 2012

Japanese GP / Qualifying: 4th consecutive pole for Seb at Suzuka!

I updated my Facebook profile last night by writing a status like this: "Just wondering if it brings some good luck for Seb at the qualifying if I go to bed wearing the Red Bull championship T shirt... ;)" That didn´t turn out to be a bad idea at all!

I didn´t mind getting up early in the morning because I knew there was going to be thrilling Formula 1 action to come. This time it was Senna in his Williams who didn´t manage to make his way through to Q2 but this was because the Brazilian was blocked by Toro Rosso´s Vergne in the first session. After the qualifying Vergne was handed a 3-place grid penalty for impeding Senna.

In Q2 Red Bull´s pace looked extremely promising. Button was also strong but Hamilton´s driving seemed pretty lame which caught my eye because usually Hamilton seems to be flying in the qualifying sessions. Ferrari seems to not have been able to improve their car as much as both McLaren and Red Bull have managed to do. Massa was the first one to be knocked out of the final session. Surprisingly also both Mercedes drivers were out of Q3 as well! Schumacher qualified 13th (but will start the race in P23 because of the grid penalty he got after the crash at Singapore) and Rosberg 15th. This time also Maldonado in his Williams failed to make his way in to the Q3.

Once again Q3 was staggeringly exciting! Vettel went out at the beginning of the last session and what a lap the German managed to pull out! He showed everybody that the battle for the championship is just beginning! His team-mate Webber qualified 2nd being two tenths slower than Seb and made it a fantastic front row lock-out for Red Bull Racing! Button couldn´t match Red Bull´s pace today and the Briton qualified 3rd being almost half a second slower than Seb. Button, however, will start the race in P8 because he has been handed a 5-place grid penalty due to a gearbox change. The Japanese Kobayashi will start in P3 tomorrow. The Japanese Sauber driver did an awesome job in front of the home crowd! Grosjean in his Lotus will start in P4 and Perez in his Sauber in P5. Alonso is 6th on the grid followed by the Iceman in P7. Kimi had the pace to qualify higher but he in his last run he simply drove too fast and spun at the spoon and got stuck on the gravel. Luckily his E20 didn´t seem to get any damage. Kimi has very rarely made mistakes in qualifying but today he made one. But I´m sure he will be there to fight for a podium finish tomorrow!

What has happened to Lewis Hamilton? He qualified 9th today which seems quite odd. At first everyone thought that he suffered from the yellow flags caused by Kimi spinning at the end of the session but according to Hamilton´s own words that wasn´t the case. They had simply chosen a wrong set-up to the car. But as I tend to have a wild imagination I can´t help thinking about Hamilton´s situation... Does the decision to leave McLaren at the end of the season affect his driving at the moment? I wouldn´t be surprised if it did. In addition to this I also read some news about Hamilton breaking up (again) with his girlfriend... All this reminds me of the previous season when Hamilton was completely lost with his driving because of the problems in his personal life! So I don´t quite know what to expect from the Briton in tomorrow´s race.

While I´m writing this blog post the incident between Vettel and Alonso is currently investigated by the stewards. Alonso has whined about Vettel blocking him at the last corner in Q3. Why doesn´t this surprise me at all! Once again there´s Alonso whining about Vettel... Aaaaarrrgghhh! I didn´t even notice anything happening between these two during the qualifying. Red Bull´s team principal Horner doesn´t seem to be worried about the situation though. Vettel needed to slow down a little because of the yellow flags but there was nothing like impeding Alonso... I just hope that the stewards agree with me on this! A penalty given to Vettel would be a total shock! In my opinion Alonso should concentrate on improving his car and trying to win the championship by DRIVING, not whining about everything that Vettel does on track!

I´m impatiently waiting for tomorrow´s race. The fourth consecutive pole at Suzuka must be a good omen for Seb, right? :) I believe there´s a magnificent chance for Seb to cut the gap to Alonso in the WDC standings tomorrow! Let´s see if Grosjean manages to get through the first corners without crashing to anybody... But I trust in Kimi as well. Although it´s a tiny disappointment that Lotus didn´t manage to get the double DRS work properly and they will therefore run without the new system tomorrow, I know Kimi will be there to fight for a podium finish!

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