Italian GP: Qualifying

Apologies for missing out the Belgian Grand Prix, but F1 returns to the northern Italian town of Monza this weekend. Possibly the first dry race for a while so drivers' race pace and tyre choices will play a big role in deciding the results. 

Italian GP Paddock (photo by @VoxVocis)

The weekend started with 'cambergate' after which FIA enforced a tyre camber setting of 3.25° after RedBull's tyres blistered excessively in the last race.

The first part of Qualifying session Q1 saw Trulli first to step out onto the Monza track. The usual suspects of RBR, McLaren and Ferrari swapped places at the top of the timesheets and the session was momentarily yellow-flagged due to Pastor Maldonado's excursion. Drivers who dropped out after Q1 were Alguersuari, Trulli, Kovalainen, Glock, D'Ambrosio, Ricciardo, Liuzzi. 

In Q2, the best time of 1min22.914 was set by (no surprise) Red Bull driver, Sebastian Vettel. Drivers who didn't make it into Q3 were di Resta, Sutil, Barrichello, Maldonado, Perez, Buemi, Kobayashi. Di Resta was knocked out of Q3 in the last few seconds of the session by Bruno Senna, who continues to show great qualifying pace after replacing Nick Heidfeld in the Lotus-Renault team.

Bruno Senna (photo by RM)

Ferrari was the first car out in Q3 in the 10-minute session and were greated by loud applause from the fans. Every driver seemed to be seeking out other drivers to derive a tow from. But eventually, Vettel took pole position from Hamilton. Other drivers making the Top 10 are Button, Alonso, Webber, Massa, Petrov, Schumacher, Rosberg and Senna.

McLaren Pitwall (mcLaren.com/Formula1)

Top Three Drivers for Italian GP (photo from BBC Website)

The Italian fans (tifosi) will be hoping for a win by Ferrari and both drivers starting from 4th (Alonso) and 6th (Massa) will try all they can not to disappoint the adoring fans.

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)

2011 Season Opener: Australian Grand Prix

Qualifying
The Formula 1 season finally got under way at Melbourne, Australia on Sunday 27th March. Qualifying on Saturday was a mixed bag and had a few surprises. Red Bull's Vettel got pole position with lap time of 1min23.529 but his team didn't dominate the front row. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton had a late charge and clinched the 2nd place on the grid. The second Red Bull car driven by Webber was 3rd, Button (McLaren) 4th, Alonso (Ferrari) 5th, Petrov (Lotus-Renault) 6th, Rosberg (Mercedes) 7th, Massa (Ferrari) 8th, Kobayashi (Sauber) 9th and Buemi (Toro-Rosso) making up the Top 10 qualifiers.
Noticeable omissions were both drivers of Hispania Racing who were victims of the new 107% rule i.e. they were not within 107% of the fastest qualifying time.

Race Day
After observing a minute's silence in remembrance of those affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the 58-lap race began with the 22 drivers who made it through qualifying.
Vettel had a good start, Hamilton and Alonso didn't but although the McLaren driver managed to retain his 2nd place position, Alonso wasn't so lucky - dropping back from 5th.

Biggest gain by the 3rd corner was Renault's Vitaly Petrov who had moved from 6th to 4th behind Webber. Button got 'stuck' behind Massa and tried to pass him several times, in fact being the first driver to deploy the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) and the new Drag Reduction System (DRS) or Adjustable Rear Wing, but the overtake manoeuvre was unsuccessful. Button was later penalised with a drive through penalty for cutting a corner while battling with Massa and Alonso.
Mercedes GP didn't have a good day, with both cars failing to finish the race. Rosberg was hit by William's Barrichello during an 'amateurish' overtake move by the Brazilian. He too was to serve a drive-through penalty for causing this collision.

Webber was the 1st of the front runners to pit for fresh tyres on lap 12. Petrov was now 3rd behind Vettel and Hamilton, and Webber fed back into 7th place. Vettel pitted in lap 15 returning onto the track behind Button who was unable to 'hold the RedBull driver' behind him. Hamilton pitted a lap later and regained his starting position behind Vettel.
Hamilton's car sustained damage 0n lap 32 in its under-tray after an excursion off the track but his lap times were generally unaffected.

Second set of tyre changes for the race leaders were around lap 36, Alonso pitting on lap 43 and leapfrogging Webber (who previously had a terrible lap) to get into 4th position. Massa overtook Toro Rosso Buemi with 3 laps to go, and the race ended with no other changes to the order.
1) VET, 2) HAM, 3) PET, 4) ALO, 5) WEB, 6) BUT, 7) PER, 8) KOB, 9) MAS, 10) BUE.
Sergio Perez, new Sauber driver, stunned the everyone by his excellent tyre management and required just 1 pit-stop (i.e. only used the mandatory minimum tyre allocation of two).