Lewis Hamilton claims pole for 2012 Spanish Grand Prix – Formula 1 news
McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton has claimed the pole position for 2012 Spanish Grand Prix which is to be held at Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona on May 13.
Hamilton set the best time of 1 minute and 21.707 seconds and secured the pole for Spanish GP. Moreover, it will be interesting to mention that this is his third pole in the season so far.
The Briton was followed by Pastor Maldonado of Williams who showed an incredible performance in the qualifying and with his best time of 1 minute and 22.285 seconds secured second grid position for the race ahead.
Maldonado stayed ahead of Fernando Alonso of Ferrari who set his fastest time of 1 minute and 22.302 seconds and will start the race from third place in the grid. Furthermore, it has been the best qualifying performance of the Spaniard in the season until
now.
Romain Grosjean of Lotus managed to secure fourth grid position for the upcoming race with his best time of 1 minute and 22.424 seconds. The French driver was followed by his teammate, Kimi Raikkonen who set his quickest time of 1 minute and 22.487 seconds
in the qualifying and will set off from fifth place in the grid.
Sergio Perez of Sauber-Ferrari came 6th in the qualifying with his quickest time of 1 minute and 22.533 seconds. The Mexican driver remained ahead of Nico Rosberg of Mercedes who secured 7th grid position with his fastest time of 1 minute and 23.005 seconds.
Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel will begin the race from 8th place in the grid and will be ahead of Michael Schumacher of Mercedes. Besides, both the drivers didn’t set any time after making their way into Q3 and went to the pits so as to conserve
the tyres for the race day. Additionally, Kamui Kobayashi stood at 10th place without setting any time in the qualifying.
Jenson Button of McLaren and Mark Webber of Red Bull were the big casualties as they could not qualify for the third session and will start from 11th and 12thgrid positions. The Australian driver stayed ahead of Paul di Resta of Force India who was followed
by his teammate, Nico Hulkenberg.
Toro Rosso pair of drivers, Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo will start from the 15th and 16th places in the grid. Felipe Massa of Ferrari with his fastest time of 1 minute and 23.444 seconds will begin from 17th grid position.
The Brazilian driver remained ahead of Bruno Senna of Williams who went off the track at turn 12 and failed to qualify for Q2. Senna was followed by Caterham pair of drivers, Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen.
Over and above, Marussia and HRT pairs of drivers will began the race from the last four places in the grid. However, since Narain Karthikeyan failed to meet the requirement of 107%, therefore, it will be on the discretion of stewards that whether the Indian
driver will be allowed to take part in the race or not.
In addition, it will be important to note that the tyre management and the track conditions will prove out to be the key deciding factors in the race.
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