Lewis Hamilton takes pole for 2012 Australian Grand Prix – Formula 1 news
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton led the qualifying at 2012 Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia and took the pole position for his team in the first race.
Hamilton set the fastest lap time of 1 minute and 24.922 seconds during Q3 in his first flying lap and ended ahead of the remaining contenders by over 0.7 second.
He was followed by his teammate, Jenson Button who set his best lap time of 1 minute and 25.074 after a strong last lap. Both the McLaren drivers have secured the one-two qualifying for the season opener.
Romain Grosjean of Lotus took an incredible third pole position after setting his best time of 1 minute and 25.302. Grosjean was just ahead of the legendary Michael Schumacher who set the time of 1 minute and 25.336 seconds which is his best qualifying time
since his F1 comeback.
Moreover, Schumacher set the fastest time during the FP2 in the new car W03 and was pleased with his team’s performance.
Red Bull Racing drivers, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel ended at fifth and sixth which was quite unexpected for the defending champions.
Nico Rosberg of Mercedes could not be able to match the performance of his teammate and made mistakes during Q3 in the couple of laps and ended at seventh position. Rosberg was followed by Pastor Maldonado of Williams, Nico Hulkenberg of Force India and
Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull’s sister team Toro Rosso. Ricciardo was followed by his teammate Jean-Eric Vergne.
The Spaniard, Fernando Alonso of Ferrari caused a red flag at turn one after his car was twisted into the gravel and was later removed by the help of the crane. Therefore, he could not manage to end amongst the top ten and took twelfth position. Furthermore,
his teammate Felipe Massa disappointingly ended at sixteenth position.
Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber set the best time of 1 minute and 26.590 seconds and secured 13th position in the pole. Kobayashi was followed by Bruno Senna of Williams who was fourteenth after setting his best time of 1 minute and 26.663 seconds during the qualifying.
Force India driver Paul di Resta could perform well enough and set his best time of 1 minute and 27.086 seconds behind Senna.
Siege Perez of Sauber followed Massa after setting his best time of 1 minute and 26.596 seconds. Perez remained ahead of Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus who came 18thafter his upsetting performance during the last lap of Q1.
Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov of Caterham could not be able to move their team out of Q1 to qualify for the next session. They were being followed by Marussia’s pair, Timo Glock and Charles Pic who managed to end within the limit of 107% rule.
Tags: