Formula One Highlights: Singapore Grand Prix, Q1 – Part 2
With Massa no longer taking part in qualifying, Toro Rosso and Sauber did not feel the pressure in their hunt to avoid relegation and feature for the second qualifying session.
Barrichello, Sutil and Hulkenberg were finally on their hot laps. Barrichello went 12th fastest, Hulkenberg came in 14th and Adrian Sutil climbed up to the 10th for a potential classification for Q2.
Kubica bashed the McLaren and Red Bull party as he past for the 3rd fastest time. Despite it being his first timed lap of Q1, perhaps it was safe to assume that it would be enough to see him safely through to Q2. Amongst the front runners, Alonso
and Webber were on track.
Petrov on the other hand looked far less certain to progress compared to his Renault teammate, he was on 17th and was expected to improve on his lap time.
Fernando Alonso, apparently unfazed by his teammate’s early departure, gave Ferrari fans something to cheer about as he went fastest at 1 minute 46.541 seconds. The drivers effectively in the knockout zone featured Glock, Di Grassi, Trulli, Kovalainen, Klien,
Senna and Massa. Meanwhile, Senna’s spin on track brought about the yellow flags.
With one minute left on the Q1 clock, it didn’t appear that any of the drivers would make it out of the relegation zone as 18th place Glock was over a second behind Rubens Barrichello occupying the last spot for Q2.
The session ended. The three tail end teams of the constructor’s standings namely, Virgin racing, Lotus F1 and HRT were knocked out and effectively failed to take part in the second qualifying session. Felipe Massa joined the three minnow teams and his problem
was yet to be confirmed. Some argued that it was engine related. On a lighter note, Klien did exceptionally well to out qualify his teammate Bruno Senna after the Australian’s first race in 3 years.
Here was the classification for the top 5 along with lap times and the number of laps put in by each driver:
F. Alonso - Ferrari - 1 minute 46.541 seconds - 9 Laps
S. Vettel - Red Bull Racing - 1 minute 46.960 seconds - 5 laps
M. Webber - Red Bull Racing - 1 minute 47.088 seconds - 7 laps
R. Kubica - Renault - 1 minute 47.657 seconds - 5 laps
N. Hulkenberg - Williams F1 – 1 minute 47.984 seconds – 6 laps
The remaining drivers that were able to make it to Q2 were
J. Button – McLaren Mercedes
J. Alguersuari – Toro Rosso
R. Barrichello – Williams
L. Hamilton – McLaren Mercedes
M. Schumacher – Mercedes GP
Sutil – Force India F1
N. Rosberg – Mercedes GP
N. Heidfeld – BMW Saubger F1
V. Petrov – Renault
K. Kobayashi – BMW Sauber F1
V. Liuzzi – Force India F1
S. Buemi – Toro Rosso
The drivers effectively relegated included:
T. Glock – Virgin Racing
H. Kovalainen – Lotus F1
L. di Grassi – Virgin Racing
J. Trulli – Lotus F1
C. Klien – HRT F1
B. Senna – HRT F1
F. Massa – Ferrari
Fernando Alonso ran the second highest laps for the session, one less than Renault’s Vitally Petrov. While the Spaniards determination was commendable, it should be noted that Alonso only has one more legitimate engine to his name for the remainder of the
season. With four more races are still to go after the Singapore outing, the Ferrari driver needs to be a little conservative with his machinery as further issuing an extra engine in the future is bound to be penalized. On the other hand, his top end competitors
Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton were still able to accomplish the feat of surviving the qualifying session with well paced 5 laps apiece. This left them not only with flexible engine options for races to come but also a fresher engine for
the remaining qualifying sessions and the marathon race on Sunday.
Coming up next, the second qualifying session. A test for the remaining 17 cars left - who would make it to the final qualifying showdown?
Stay tuned for Q2!
Tags: