Nico Rosberg tops Q1 before qualifying gets postponed - Formula 1 news
The first qualifying session of the Formula 1 2013 season has been postponed after torrential rain hit Melbourne in Australia on Saturday, March 16, 2013. The drivers
came out for the first session of qualifying, but things went out of control afterwards.
After the first couple of practice sessions went smoothly on Friday, the teams headed out for final practice early morning today. However, the weather was quite
tricky since morning and showers were expected throughout the day.
Due to this, the drivers came out early in tried to gather as much data as possible for the all important qualifying session to follow. Lotus’ driver Romain Grosjean
set the fastest lap of P3, but rain prevented other drivers to challenge his time.
None of the top drivers took a risk and decided to stay in the garage for most part of the practice session. They would have hoped for the conditions to improve
during qualifying, but the situation got worse.
At first, the qualifying session was delayed because of water logging on the track. Once the conditions got better, all drivers came out to post in some laps. There
was quite a lot of action throughout the first session, as a lot of drivers went off the track and found it hard to cope with the wet track.
However, things started getting better with the passage of time and different drivers topped the time sheets for a few moments. One man, who looked consistent throughout
Q1, was Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg.
The German driver was unable to match his former team-mate Michael Schumacher in wet conditions last year, but things looked better for him this time around. He
did not make any mistakes and finished the session on top of the table with a lap time of 1.43.380 seconds.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was not far behind, as he ended the session in second place. Meanwhile the third place was cemented by Grosjean.
Just when the first qualifying session ended, rain returned to the track and the stewards decided to postpone the remaining two sessions for Sunday, March 17.
Drivers who were knocked out of the first session were Pastor Maldonado, Esteban Gutierrez, Jules Bianchi, Max Chilton, Giedo van der Garde and Charles Pic.
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