It's almost midnight in Finland. I've spent the day at my parents' house and I didn't come home until at half past nine in the evening. I've had an awful headache all day but finally I managed to get rid of it! And what would be a better way to spend the midnight than writing about Formula 1 ;)
This weekend the F1 circus moved to legendary Monza, which is also the venue for Ferrari's home race. The top teams started to Q1 on the medium tyres like expected. At the beginning of the first segment there was an incident where Sauber's Ericsson was blocking the Force India of Hulkenberg but the stewards declared that the case was to be investigated after the qualifying. The Ferrari team-mates both made their second runs on the prime tyres, which I found a bit surprising. Hamilton who was topping the timesheets had also set his lap time on the medium tyres. Rosberg was second with a similar strategy. I was happy to see Kimi in P3. Both Force Indias seemed to have excellent pace as well although both Perez and Hulkenberg had set their fastest lap times on the soft tyres. To my disappointment Toro Rosso lost their race against time to get Verstappen out for a flying lap due to an engine issue. This was the first time in Verstappen's brief F1 career that he failed to reach Q2. We saw a bizarre episode when the team sent Verstappen out in the dying moments of the first session and almost immediately Verstappen's engine covers came off! In addition to the Dutchman also both McLarens and both Marussias got knocked out of Q2.
When Q2 got underway Hamilton was on fire right from the start. The Briton set a staggering lap time being 7 tenths of a second faster than his team-mate! However, partly Rosberg's tame performance can be explained by using an old-spec engine, which the German had reverted to. Ferrari's pace seemed fantastic: both Kimi and Sebastian were faster than Rosberg! Hamilton and Räikkönen , who were the fastest drivers after the first attempts, decided to sit out the second runs. Red Bull's Ricciardo also suffered from engine issues and didn't set a lap time in Q2. Also his team-mate Kvyat was knocked out of the decisive Q3 as well as Maldonado (Lotus), Nasr (Sauber) and Sainz (Toro Rosso).
Once again there was no doubt about who was going to snatch pole in Monza. After the first runs the Briton was topping the timesheets with Sebastian second and Kimi third. Massa in his Williams was fourth and Rosberg was in surprisingly low P5 being half a second slower than his team-mate! After yesterday's free practice sessions it seemed that Mercedes were 1,5 seconds faster than their closest rival Ferrari, which looked quite depressing. Luckily this didn't turn out to be the case in today's qualifying! Hulkenberg was yet another driver to suffer from technical woes in the qualifying: the German stopped at the pit lane entry as he reported a loss of power in his VJM08. Hamilton didn't manage to improve his lap time on his second run but his pole was never threatened. Kimi pulled out an amazing lap and edged his team-mate Sebastian fair and square! What a perfect day for the Iceman for a change! It was tight though as there were only five hundredths of a second separating the Ferrari team-mates. Rosberg was left fourth, which must have been a bitter disappointment for the Mercedes driver. The Williams duo Massa and Bottas occupied the third row with Massa being the faster one of the Williams drivers. Perez qualified 7th, Grosjean 8th, Hulkenberg 9th and Ericsson 10th.
Various penalties have been applied for tomorrow's race. Ericsson has been penalized three grid places for impeding Hulkenberg in Q1. The McLarens of Alonso and Button, the Red Bulls of Ricciardo and Kvyat and the Toro Rossos of Sainz and Verstappen are all affected by multiple engine and gearbox penalties. Verstappen will also have to serve a drive-through penalty in the first three laps of the race after the stewards decided that his STR10 was released in an unsafe condition during Q1. This many penalties make me very confused about tomorrow's grid. All I know is that Red Bull and Toro Rosso are set to occupy the final two rows of the grid but I've lost the count of the number of grid slots that each driver has been dropped... A 35-place grid drop feels nothing but ridiculous, not to mention the 105 grid places that the McLaren duo was set to drop at Spa! 4 power units per season is too little for the majority of the teams it seems.
Rosberg faced problems with the new-spec engine so problems may emerge for Hamilton as well. I'm sure that both Kimi and Sebastian will drive with all their heart in front of the tifosis so I'm confident that both of them will stand on the podium tomorrow! I don't mind the order as long as either one of them will be on the top step, haha! ;D But I definitely don't want to see any exploding tyres this time!
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