Qualifying: Vettel Back on Top in Valencia
- Published on Jun 26th, 2010 by Adam MilleneuveDespite the Valencia Street Circuit not being the best for racing or the most anticipated grand prix playground of the year, this afternoon's qualifying session promised to be a classic with top teams being so close, especially with many of them arriving in Spain with numerous updates on their motors. Ferrari and Renault looking to have made the biggest improvements... here's the qualifying session as it happened:
ROUND 1
BOBBY K IMPRESSES, SCHUMACHER SCRAPES THROUGH
This was nearly a disaster for the legendary Michael Schumacher as he only squeezed through on his final lap to secure 12th. The usual suspects went out, i.e. all the new-for-2010 teams with Lotus leading Virgin from Hispania. Sauber are having a poor weekend again with Kamui Kobayashi also going out in round 1 of qualifying. Williams are having a far better time with Rubens tryout their new F-Duct and finishing 4th - team mate Nico Hulkenberg isn't using the F-Duct this weekend, because his legs are too short (bless!).
A great start to what promised to be a great qualifying session with one of seven drivers possible to grab pole position - Kubica took first blood by topping the timesheet with a convincing time, nearly two tenths quicker than everyone else after only completing four laps.
ROUND 2
A TURN UP FOR WILLIAMS AS MERCEDES BOW OUT
Williams have struggled throughout 2010 so far, that's a fair comment but today in Valencia they've finally turned a corner and got both of their drivers into the top 10 shoot out with Barrichello in 7th and Hulkenberg in 9th. Also, Renault will be smiling with Vitaliy Petrov and Bobby K getting through, it's a massive bonus for the team and a positive improvement for the year's star Russian rookie.
The timesheet shows Red Bull back at the top and in charge, but as we have already seen this year, nothing can be taken for granted until the final top ten shoot out...
ROUND 3
POLE POSITION SHOOT OUT
Sebastian Vettel as rightly chuffed to bits with grabbing pole position in Valencia in a final shoot out which fired a warning shot to the rest of the teams - yes they all arrived here with updates-a-plenty but even with these fancy improvements, Red Bull are still clearly the team to beat with Webber grabbing 2nd, less than tenth of a second behind his team mate. Hamilton had a good chance to upset the Red Bull party but he lost it under braking on his flying lap, Kubica did well but couldn't match the final pace of the Red Bulls. Ferrari arrived in Valencia full of promise, but could only manage 4th and 5th - perfectly respectable, but Alonso especially will want to make improvements during the race in front of his home crowd.
© Red Bull / Getty Images
Comments and Discussion
Hello chaps- after a long break from the great F1 Badger, but not my love of F1, I'm back...this is a bit negative...but I can't resist it...one of my posts from last season...
Re: Kobayashi
______________________
Oudinot
Kaiser Sose? No…wrong film…
Dear dear dear…another Japanese wannabe without the credentials.
(Yawn)….twas ever thus, sadly….
Reply October 3, 2009 at 12:36 am
Confused!?
I absolutely, truly can't understand anything from what you just wrote...
The quickest Lotus was nearly a second and a half clear of the quickest Virgin. Impressive stuff.
Apologies for the confusion...its just that at the end of last season there was a lot of gushing praise for Kobayashi on F1 Badger based on a couple of perfomances...today's qualification follows the pattern set this season of him actually being,in my opinion sadly, another hyped up Japanese driver pushed into F1 by business executives when the talent really isn't there.
On a positive, I thought Lewis Hamilton did an excellent job today- If he can keep up with the Red Bull's to tyre stop....who knows, might yet win it.
I think you'll find that it's the Sauber which is rubbish.
Last year's Toyota was a half-decent car and a driver could use it to express themselves, this year's Sauber is nothing of the sort unfortunately.
Pedro de la Rosa doesn't do much better with it and it looks awful on tv, wiggling around in all the braking zones as it was today.
I thought Q3 was a bit of an anticlimax after how close Q2 was. Not to take anything away from Red Bull's pace, they did a better job than anyone else and i don't think Hamilton would've beaten either of them even without his last-run mistake.
If it was any other track i'd say it's set up nicely for a great race again... but i'll look silly if i say that about Valencia, so i'll just keep my fingers crossed instead.
I was quite amused when Schumacher was in the drop zone and under pressure, and his engineer came on the radio and generously handed over a good excuse for he was slow, just in case he didn't make it.
Kamui was 0.34 behind his teammate DLR, who has 6 years of test-driver experience. In the shootout, Button was 0.24 behind Hamilton.
If Kamui had a decent car he wouldn't be getting this much stick.
We're set up for an interesting race. I'd use the word fantastic, but as Dave says this is Valencia, so meh.
Who else saw the video footage of Alonso under breaking, losing about 2 inches of height in his cockpit? Brilliant evidence of the pressure under extreme braking.
I think we can all agree Kamui had a great race today, can't we?
Kamui had a great race today.
Delighted he put one over on Alonso at the last corner.
We'll have more of that please Mr. Kobayashi.