Oh gosh how I had missed intense Formula 1 action during the off-season! I was absolutely overwhelmed with joy yesterday morning when I woke up to watch the very first free practice session of the year! No matter it was extremely early morníng in Finland, watching the new cars on track while having a large cup of coffee and some coffee flavoured ice-cream made my day absolutely perfect!
After the free practices I was convinced that Red Bull would be the team to beat in the qualifying! I had a vision in my head that if there was anybody who could possibly prevent the Red Bull duo from making it a front row lock-out it would be Kimi in his staggeringly fast E21! But when the qualifying got underway it definitely didn´t go to this plan of mine! The qually got a very unexpected turn due to heavy rain and Q2 and Q3 were delayed for tomorrow morning.
Q1 started in wet conditions after it had first been delayed three times. What a chaotic 20-minute session! The drivers started the session with full wets and when the track got drier they switched to intermediates. There were many offs in Q1. Hamilton didn´t have the best possible start to his career in Mercedes as the Briton was among the first ones to spin. He damaged his rear wing when hitting a barrier but luckily he was able to continue and set a time fast enough to make through Q1. Massa´s pace had looked very strong in the practices but he also went off in the slippery conditions and broke his front wing which had to be changed. All the rookies except Bottas had difficulties to keep their car between the white lines. Both Caterham drivers van der Garde and Pic spun and went off and the Mexican Sauber driver Gutierrez was unable to continue the qualifying after his crash. So the offs were not only due to lack of experience though I have to say I wasn´t surprised at all to see the Caterham drivers or Gutierrez to face difficulties!
Q1 was definitely a messy lottery. Rosberg in Mercedes managed to set the fastest time and topped the timesheets. Alonso was second fastest followed by Grosjean, Perez and Webber. Due to the hardcore conditions we didn´t see the true pace of drivers like Kimi and Vettel. 16 drivers made through Q1 and the Venezuelan Williams driver Maldonado was the first one to be knocked out of Q2. His team-mate Bottas made a strong and convincing debut and was the only rookie to make it in to Q2. Absolutely fantastic work from Valtteri! Especially as the FW35 was a very difficult car to drive as both drivers struggled with getting the tyre temperatures up.
At the end of the day I´m not completely sure if the decision of delaying the two final sessions for tomorrow was down to the amount of water on the track or the descending twilight but anyway, the Q2 will get underway at 2 am Finnish time! Rain isn´t expected tomorrow but in terms of weather forecasts you never know what´s really going to happen.
To me it seems that Red Bull and Lotus are the strongest teams at the moment. I´ve been positively surprised by Mercedes´ performance! They have been fast in the winter tests also before but now they have looked extremely competitive in the free practices as well. Ferrari is in a good position as well. McLaren has caught my eye in a disappointing sense. They seem to be struggling with their new car and unable to understand either the behaviour of the car or the new Pirelli tyres. The pecking order of the midfield is hard to tell. In terms of the backmarkers to me it seems that Marussia have been able to develop their car whilst Caterham´s performance has got worse than last year. They should have signed Heikki for this season instead of the paydrivers! Heikki´s experience in developping the car would have been priceless, something that two unexperienced drivers can´t bring to the team no matter what kind of money loads they bring!
I hope to see Vettel on pole tomorrow and Kimi second on the front row! And this time I hope everything will go according to my little plan! ;) Woohoo, Formula 1 is BACK!!
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti