Spanish Grand Prix 2011: 1st Qualifying session – Formula One highlights (part 2)
Jenson Button entered the picture next. The British driver started his hot lap soon after, as Adrian Sutil slotted into 2nd fastest with his latest lap – Vitaly Petrov improved further on his lap time.
A minute later, Jenson Button topped the charts, rather unsurprisingly. Maldonado was 3rd fastest in his Williams.
Mark Webber ran his first lap of the session moments later and beat the McLaren’s time at the top – He was faster than Button by almost a whole second. Fernando Alonso had set his first timed lap of the session and slotted in 4th – A total of 14 cars had set a competitive time so far.
Nico Rosberg in the first of the Mercedes started his flying lap and crossed the start-finish line 5th fastest. Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel completed his first lap but failed to beat his teammate’s time; settling for 2nd fastest, for now. Mark Webber seemed to be in a league of his own as he further improved his time by a tenth of a second on his following lap.
Lewis Hamilton looked right on the limit on his hot lap and made a mistake on the entry to Turn 7. The Briton ran off the track and had to go over the curbs before returning to the asphalt – Immediately, there was activity over the McLaren pit radio as Hamilton complained of under steer to his race engineer.
12 minutes into the session and Rubens Barrichello effectively led the relegation zone in his Williams. However, the Brazilian improved upon his lap time soon after and got his car in the Top 17; putting Karthikeyan in the bottom 7 as a result. Barrichello was now classified 14th. Ferrari’s Felipe Massa ran a tidy lap but only managed to go 13th fastest.
Moments later, both Toro Rossos set blistering laps to shoot up to 2nd and 3rd respectively – Sebastien Buemi was faster than his teammate Jaime Alguersuari this time. Kamui Kobayashi set a flyer soon after and took 2nd spot from Buemi. As a result, Paul di Resta headed the relegation zone in 18th position. His Sauber teammate, Perez ran 6th fastest which looked set to book him a place for round 2 of qualifying.
16 minutes were already completed in the 20 minute qualifying session. Stay tuned for more to come in the battle for the Top 17 places.
To be continued in part 3...
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