European GP: Qualifying

A harbour-side street circuit in a dry, hot Valencia was the venue of Qualifying for the European Grand Prix.

Drop-Outs from Q1 were the usual suspects of ALG, KOV, TRU, GLO, LIU, DAM, KAR (Alguersuari, Kovalainen, Trulli, Glock, Liuzzi, d'Ambrosio, Karthikeyan)

Q2 got underway shortly afterwards with Ferrari's Massa first out on track. Session was RED FLAGGED when Maldonado stopped in the middle of the track with 8 minutes to go - due to what seemed to be mechanical or electrical failure. At this point, Buemi and Petrov hadn't set a time. Session restarted soon afterwards and all 17 drivers got a time on the board.

However Sutil pushed Petrov out of the top 10 in the last few seconds of Q2. This also means Sutil outqualifies his team-mate for only the second time this season since Turkish GP; partly due to di Resta's lack of running on Friday (Hulkenberg crashed his car during FP1) and a wobble in the last few seconds of Q2. Sutil was later fined €18,400 for 2 incidents of pit-lane speeding in Q2. Mike Gascoigne of Team Lotus suggested that was perhaps for an error in his pit-lane limiter.

Out of Q2 are PET, DIR, BAR, KOB, MAL, PER, BUE (Petrov, DiResta, Barichello, Maldonado, Perez, Buemi) leaving Vettel, Hamilton, Button, Alonso, Webber, Schumacher, Rosberg, Massa, Heidfeld and Sutil to battle it out for the top 10 positions.

With 2 minutes left in the session and with Vettel on provisional pole (Imin36.975), all the front runners went back out including Schumacher who hadn't set a time yet.

Top 10 are: VET, WEB, HAM, ALO, MAS, BUT, ROS, SCH, HEI, SUT

Top 3 Drivers (courtesy BBC.co.uk)

Welcome back, Formula 1

133 days have passed since we packed up in Abu Dhabi on 14th November 2010. In case you have been stuck in a cave somewhere, here are 133 things that have happened in F1 during the 'unusually and unbearably long' off-season period, which thankfully ends on 27th March 2011 in Australia. Enjoy!

Cars

1. McLaren launches MP4-26 in Berlin on 4th February 2011

2. Ferrari’s F150* makes it debut in Italy

3. Renault F1 (Fernando Alonso and Flavio Briatore’s old team) is now called Lotus-Renault and the new car is R31

4. Team Lotus retains its name (for now, pending the High Court hearing to decide whether or not both Lotus entries – Fernandes’ Team Lotus and Lotus Renault GP, formerly Renault F1 – should be permitted to use these names), and their car is T128

5. Virgin racing has new co-sponsor and is now called MarussiaVirgin Racing, 2011 car is the MVR-02

6. Force India’s team-name remains the same, but the new F1 car is called VJM04


7. Williams' new offering is the FW33


8. RB7 is the Red Bull 2011 car


9. Hispania Racing have returned in 2011 with the F111


10. Sauber finally get rid of 'BMW' and their car is called the C30


11. Mercedes GP's "MGP W02" easily wins the trophy for the longest F1 car name


12. Toro-Rosso return in 2011 with the STR6


Rule Changes


13. Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) makes a re-appearance this season


14. Adjustable rear-wings are now allowed

ex-F1 drivers at Le Mans

This year's "24hrs du LeMans" event falls on the same day as the F1 Grand prix in Canada, Montreal. However there will some F1 presence at Le Mans with the likes of Alex Wurz, Anthony Davidson, Nigel Mansell and Sebastian Bourdais in different teams entered in this year's 24hour endurance race.

Peogeot won in 2009, putting an end to Tom Kristensen's and Audi's campaign to win their ninth consecutive title. But both teams will be back stronger this year, and it promises to be a fantastic spectacle.