Felipe Massa tops Q1 session in Malaysia - HRT, Virgin Racing Team, Team Lotus eliminated
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa surprisingly pulled off an impressive performance at the first round Q1 of the qualifying session of the Malaysian Grand Prix.
Ferrari was looking pretty good this time and it seems that they have improved vitally as Fernando Alonso scored the third fastest time behind Lewis Hamilton’s second fastest time.
After the Q1 session, the fastest 17 drivers will head on to the Q2 session after which 7 more drivers would be eliminated before heading into the Q3 session.
Neither of the new teams was able to make it to the Q2 session as Team Lotus, Hispania Racing Team (HRT) and Virgin Racing Team were unable to score into the top 17.
Surprisingly, Williams was not looking strong, as Pastor Maldonado also got eliminated out of the qualifying session and he won’t compete in the Q2 session either.
On the other hand, his teammate Rubens Barrichello barely made it to the session as he finished in 17th place according to the timesheets of the session.
Other than that, Mercedes GP looked pretty good as well as Michael Schumacher scored the 4th fastest time of the session followed by Kamui Kobayashi and Jenson Button in 5th and 6th places respectively.
Schumacher’s teammate, Nico Rosberg, scored the 9th fastest time of the session followed by Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull in 10th place according to the timesheets.
However, the main goal of the Q1 session is to make it to the top 17 and most of the teams got everything right this time. Both of the Sauber drivers and Lotus Renault GP drivers were also looking pretty good.
It is expected that it is going to be a very close competition between McLaren and Red Bull Racing Team during the Q2 and Q3 session as both of them constantly challenged each other up until now throughout the 3 free practice sessions.
Ferrari has the ability to spoil the part for McLaren as well but it is still going to be quite unpredictable and things would get much clearer during the Q3 session.
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