Kimi Räikkönen & Sebastian Vettel

Kimi Räikkönen & Sebastian Vettel

sunnuntai 17. marraskuuta 2013

United States GP / Qualifying: the Bulls were uncatchable!

I woke up to a stormy morning here in Southern Finland. An autumn storm with high wind had arrived. That meant only one thing: a power cut! The electricity was out for almost two hours but luckily the problem was fixed and the power is back now! I started to get worried because the F1 race will be on this evening... And a power cut during an F1 race would be a total catastrophy!

The conditions at Austin were also very windy and tricky yesterday when the qualifying got underway. In Q1 the first fast laps were set with the hard tyres. Except for Red Bulls who came out at the end of the first session and did their runs with the medium tyres. What was absolutely amazing about the Q1 was the fact that Valtteri Bottas at the wheel of his FW35 was the fastest man on the track! The tricky conditions and the slippery track seemed to suit the Finn just perfectly! It was utterly delightful to see how the FW35 seemed to be a whole new car on the US soil - at least in the hands of the flying Finn! His team-mate Maldonado didn´t make it in to Q2 but qualified 18th. The Venezuelan was unlucky because he was impeded twice on his attempts. Gutierrez in his Sauber was handed a 10-place grid penalty for impeding Maldonado and Marussia´s Chilton got a drive-through penalty for the race for the same reason. But in spite of these impeding incidents, Bottas´s driving just seemed to be on a whole different level compared to his team-mate´s...! Very impressive drive from Bottas indeed!

Valtteri Bottas carried on his excellent pace also in Q2. The Finn was 4th fastest in the second session! Sebastian at the wheel of his RB9 topped the time sheets which can be considered no surprise ;) Surprisingly there were many top drivers who were out of Q3. Rosberg didn´t manage to make it higher than P14 and Massa qualified 15th. Also Button was out of Q3 qualifying in P13. The track conditions had changed from the morning´s free practice and almost everybody seemed to be struggling with their cars... Except Bottas in his Williams! :D (And the Red Bull duo). Heikki Kovalainen who replaced Kimi Räikkönen at Lotus due to Kimi´s back operation, seemed to have adapted to the new car immediately. Heikki was the last driver to complete the top ten and made his way to the final session! The Finn´s pace in the free practice sessions had been very promising. It clearly seemed that Lotus had made the right choice by choosing Heikki to replace Kimi for the two remaining races of the season!

This time it really seemed that Webber could seriously challenge the reigning world champion for pole at Austin. Webber drove a perfect-looking lap and took the initial pole. On the last attempt Sebastian was two tenths down on Webber in the first sector but guess what?!? Sebastian still managed to grab the pole for himself! I can´t help wondering how he manages to pull out the perfect magical lap every time! His driving was once again purely miraculous! Webber had to settle for P2 once again. Grosjean at the wheel of his E21 qualified 3rd and Hulkenberg 4th, so excellent performance from these two guys. Hamilton was 5th, Alonso 6th, Perez 7th, Kovalainen 8th, Bottas 9th and Gutierrez 10th (the Mexican was dropped to P20 due to his penalty). Red Bull´s pace was crushing: Grosjean was 8 tenths off Sebastian´s pace! Heikki´s performance can be considered a success: it seems that Heikki hasn´t had any difficulties whatsoever to adapt to his new car! You could easily mistake thinking that Heikki has been driving the E21 the whole season... Maybe using Kimi´s underwear has brought some extra luck for the other flying Finn, hahaha :D:D

I can´t wait for tonight´s race! I´m expecting Sebastian to take a sweeping victory if there won´t be any technical worries. I´m convinced that Heikki at the wheel of the E21 is capable of making great things happen... I hope the conditions will remain tricky as it clearly makes Bottas fly! So in spite of the fact that I miss seeing Kimi on the track I´m sure Heikki is the best man to replace the Iceman! First when I heard the news that Kimi will miss the last two remaining races of the season I felt so hollow somehow but now I couldn´t be any more excited about tonight´s race! I hope Kimi will have a speedy recovery and I´m sure Heikki will make sure that Kimi doesn´t need to feel ashamed of the performance of his fellow countryman :)

P.S. Williams has announced their driver line-up for 2014: Massa will partner Valtteri Bottas next year. Kevin Magnussen will replace Perez at McLaren. There´re rumours that Maldonado will move to Lotus next year and Hulkenberg´s team for next year is still to be announced... Perez´s future in F1 still seems uncertain.

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