Kimi Räikkönen & Sebastian Vettel

Kimi Räikkönen & Sebastian Vettel

lauantai 10. toukokuuta 2014

Spanish GP / Qualifying: Mercedes domination continues!

The 3-week break is finally over and the F1 circus has moved to Europe. Blue sky and sunny weather meant that finally there were stable conditions for qualifying without any chances of pouring rain or overwhelming heat. All teams had brought major upgrades for this GP weekend hoping they could have closed the gap to Mercedes AMG.

Almost right away in Q1 Lotus´s Maldonado lost the control of his E22 at the exit of turn 3 and crashed to the wall causing red flags. Different teams had different tyre tactics. Both Mercedes drivers and the Red Bull duo set their fastest lap times with the prime tyres whilst majority of the drivers used option tyres already in the first session. In spite of the tyre choice the Mercedes drivers topped the time sheets Nico being the fastest of those two. My hopes were high in terms of Sebastian´s performance. The German had had a catastrophic Friday as Sebastian´s RB10 was hit by a technical failure (an ERS overheating issue) already in the first free practice session and the problem was so severe that Sebastian missed the entire second free practice in the afternoon. But in Q1 it seemed that Sebastian was right on form and ready to fight for the top grid slots. Sauber´s Adrian Sutil was the first man not to make it into Q2.

Everyone started to Q2 with the softer compound of the Pirelli tyres. In Q2 it seemed that Lotus had actually managed to make a significant leap forward in terms of their performance as Grosjean was 6th fastest in the session! The fastest men were the same as in Q1: Nico topped the timesheets with Lewis 2nd. I was delighted to see Kimi as high as 7th because it seemed obvious that his F14T wasn´t an easy one to drive. Alonso also struggled with his pace and just barely made it in to the final session being 10th fastest! Both Force Indias were out of the final session. Magnussen at the wheel of his McLaren faced a power unit related problem and was unable to set a lap time. Toro Rosso´s Vergne didn´t start to the session, either.

My hopes dashed completely in the final session. The session had barely got underway as Sebastian had to stop his car on the track due to a gearbox problem! Already when the Red Bull ace left the pits he lost the second gear but he thought he could manage the lap without the second gear. But by reaching the first turn he had lost all the gears so his qualifying was over. So another red flag delay today. So disappointing! Why does it always have to be Sebastian´s car with all the problems this season?? Though I know this question and moaning isn´t fully justified as last season it always seemed to be Mark Webber´s car suffering from all the technical issues. Most of the drivers made only one run in Q3. As if by magic Hamilton found some extra pace and conquered the pole and left his team-mate Rosberg 2nd. Ricciardo made it in P3 but was already a second down on Hamilton! Bottas at the wheel of his FW36 took a surprising 4th place whilst his team-mate Massa made a mistake on his last run which kept the Brazilian down to P9. The Finn seems to enjoy it at Circuit de Catalunya and the track seems to bring the best out in him. Grosjean continued the excellent form and qualified 5th right in front of Kimi in P6 and Alonso in P7. Button in his McLaren was 8th fastest.

After the qualifying it´s more and more obvious that Mercedes´s mammoth advantage over their rivals hasn´t disappeared anywhere. I guess we can´t expect anything but overwhelming dominance by Mercedes AMG in tomorrow´s race. Without any technical woes there´s no doubt about the winner: it´s going to be either one of the Mercedes drivers and if I have to pick either one I´d pick Hamilton. He is living such an unbelievable momentum now.

I was utterly excited about Kimi beating his team-mate today! Though it seems that Kimi´s F14T is "all over the place" but I´m sure if anyone can tame the Prancing Horse it´s definitely Kimi so I´m expecting a strong race from the Iceman. In terms of Sebastian I´m more worried. He was handed a 5-place grid penalty due to the gearbox change so he´ll start to the race from P15. I just hope there won´t be any more technical issues facing him in the race! If the previous season was all about glory, this one seems to be all about setbacks. But they are meant to be overcome, right? :) I always believe in him no matter how high the mountain of difficulties will be!

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