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Inside line: F1 qualifying

Right on cue the rain arrived at 16 00 local time, with the first drops falling as the cars warmed their engines ahead of qualifying for tomorrow’s 56-lap Malaysian Grand Prix.

Thanks to a delayed start – by two hours in line with F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone’s desire to have his cake and eat it by attracting as many viewers in western time zones as possible – the chances are around 90% that rain will fall early in the race; possibly even at the start.

It will be wet - pity McLaren and Ferrari

The effect of a wet Q1 was clear to see on the faces of the Ferrari and McLaren pit crews as their DNQ’d for the second qualifying session. Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa both experienced agricultural moments in the Ferraris after the team attempted to out-guess the weather, with the former displaying his superb car control by pointing in precisely the right direction and flooring it immediately after a recovering from a double spin while on a hot lap. Massa, too, slid wide, and the net effect was that both Ferraris failed to make the cut to Q2.

‘We were expecting the rain to stop and that’s why we stayed in the garage longer than the others,’ stated a visibly unhappy Alonso. When we went out, in fact the conditions got worse and even on the extreme wets, we were unable to improve our time. Rain might make things more spectacular, but the session just turns into a lottery. Today, it went badly for us and we found ourselves in the wrong place – the track – at the wrong time.’

However, the 2005/6 champion is hopeful of a better Sunday, and there is nothing more spectacular than the fired up Spaniard.

The championship leader’s mission on Sundays says it all: ‘However, the result of qualifying is only worth the paper on which it is written, because the points are assigned at the end of the race. Of course, starting from the back puts us in a difficult position but, as we saw last Sunday in Melbourne, anything can happen and we have to trust in our abilities. We must do our best to bring home a points finish.’

Massa, who started from the back last year under similar circumstances, too, is hoping for a better result on race day. ‘We made a mistake and we were caught out by the weather forecast. Now we must do our best for tomorrow’s race. It will be tough, as always when you start from the back of the grid, but we will have to try and score at least a few points. It’s hard to say whether it’s better to hope for rain or sunshine: maybe with the former there might be more chance of the tables being turned, but it’s equally true that there are more chances of ending up out of the race.’


Sutil has managed to qualify a valiant fourth.

McLaren are upbeat(ish)
 
Across at McLaren things were better, but only slightly so as Jenson Button made the cut, then landed in the gravel. As outside assistance, in the form of a crane, was required to recover his car, the reigning champion was prohibited from starting the second session, relegating him to 17th. Hamilton, too, had some ‘moments’, and by the time the 2008 world champion had recovered his chance was gone.

He is, of course, recognised for never giving up, and told the media he intends fighting from the ‘off’. ‘I’d been fastest all weekend, but what can we do? We’ve just got to shrug it off. And, as I always, say, I’ll never give up. That’s why I’m not only focusing on the fast cars around me, I’m focusing on everyone – including those who are quite a few rows in front of me.’

This fighting talk does not, though, alter the fact that there will be three world champions and a title runner-up taking the start in the company of rookies Karun Chandok, Bruno Senna and Lucas di Grassi...

Make or break session

On, then, to Q2, which produced no major surprises despite being held on a track even wetter (certainly in parts) than had been the case in Q1. Renault’s Vitaly Petrov, Pedro de la Rosa (Sauber), the Toro Rosos of the Sebastiens Buemi and Alguersuari, Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus) and Virgin’s Timo Glock all dropped out of the running in company with Button.

‘We thought the first rainstorm was it, and there was nothing else coming, so we waited. I guess events proved it was the wrong thing to do,’ explained a crest-fallen Button, who on Friday spoke hoped for a victory to add to his Australian win.

‘My first lap on Inters (intermediate tyres) felt okay. The thing is, you get no real warning; the first sector of the lap was quite dry, then you get to the fast left-right and it’s really wet. I just aquaplaned off, and got stuck in the gravel. I couldn’t do anything about it. I just hope I haven’t damaged anything on the car because I was sat in the gravel with the engine running for some time, hoping to get pulled out.’

As the start of Q3 approached the rain and wind increased in intensity, and, sure enough, no sooner had the top ten pre-qualifiers completed their ‘out’ laps than red flags were flown – the session aborted due to a ‘change of climatic conditions’.


The rain and humid conditions had Ferrari experiencing a qualifying strategy meltdown...

Lack of logic

‘Formula 1 regularly shoots itself in the foot,’ said one outspoken media critic of the delayed start, with yet another defending F1 and blaming Ecclestone, who persisted with a late afternoon timetable for both qualifying and the race despite the 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix having been stopped before half distance due to rain. Yes, he had brought the race start (and qualifying) forward an hour from last year, but still today rain stopped play and is expected to do so again tomorrow.

When action was resumed after 20 minutes the track was drier, but only marginally so. Still, Mark Webber, who admitted in the run-up to this race that he had overdriven at home in Australia last weekend, topped the times when the chequer flag fell, taking pole position for Red Bull Racing by over a second from Nico Rosberg’s silver Mercedes.

‘It was tricky today,’ said Webber, stating the obvious. ‘When you look at the amount of standing water there was in places during Q1 and Q2, trying to get everything right and a clear lap was difficult, especially as there is a fair difference in pace between some of the cars.’

He had come in for a fair amount of stick for his rather robust race in Melbourne, and his pole lap certainly silenced his critics.

‘My Q2 lap on intermediate tyres was a bit of a three point turn round Pedro (de la Rosa) and that was my quickest, so you knew you had to keep pushing; the conditions were changing so quickly. A few big names went out in the first session, which was a surprise, but it just goes to show how sensitive everything is to timing,’ added Webber, who had been persuaded by his race engineer Ciaron Pilbeam to wager a fast lap on intermediates when all others were on full wets.

Third on the grid went to Webber’s RBR team-mate Seb Vettel, with another German, Adrian Sutil, in fourth for Force India. Nico Hulkenberg rounded off the top five for Williams. That made it four Germans in the top five, and, with Michael Schumacher in eighth with the second Mercedes, five in the top ten.

By contrast, Britain’s two hotshots were in the bottom third, something which hardly sat well with the massive British media contingent hoping for a Button or Hamilton victory in Malaysia. However, it is not over until the fat lady sings, so the race should be a humdinger.


A master in the rain: but is Schumacher's level of desire still up to it?

Schumacher out of it?

However, if those at the sharp end were impressive given the conditions, Schumacher, who needs to find a  way around the Renault of Robert Kubica and Rubens Barrichello’s Williams simply to break into the top six, looked decidedly lack-lustre for the third time in as many qualifying sessions since he made his return to the sport he once bestrode like a Colossus, particularly in the wet.

‘I’m very disappointed,’ the former seven-time champion explained afterwards. ‘The tyres were the problem, I guess I don’t have enough experience with these tyres. On my first lap I was too conservative, and on the second they were half-gone. By the third lap they were too far gone (to set a fast lap).’

However, arguably the biggest surprise of the day was Kamui Kobayashi’s ninth place for Sauber, for the Japanese rookie has not proven a paragon of consistency in the first two races of the year, while Tonio Liuzzi, while happy at having made the top ten with Force India, will wake up to thoughts of how team-mate Sutil took almost two seconds off him.

All in an unpredictable session, with the gutsiest driver on the grid taking a courageous gamble with intermediates on a streaming track. That the best man got pole today goes without saying, but, with the Ferrari and McLaren drivers starting at the back, the race, which starts at 16:00 local (10:00SAST), is likely to be even more unpredictable. Which is just what F1 needs as it buries memories of  'Borerain’.



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