Rosberg Grabs Spain Pole in a Mercedes Front Row Lock-Out

And were back. It’s been too long, no? The sun was out and the teams were raring to go in the Catalonian springtime for the first competitive F1 action for three weeks.

Q1

The big story in Q1 was Williams continuing woes, with both Bottas and Maldonado failing to make Q2.

Down the back the battle of the ‘new’ teams was won by a fantastic lap by Van Der Garde, which put him in P19, a full half a second quicker than his team mate Pic.

In other news there was the standard selection of blocking incidents, with Jenson complaining vocally about blocked by Maldonado (which didn’t look too bad on replay), and Kimi not bothering to complain about being cut up by Gutierrez (which looked pretty blatant).

Q2

Moving on to Q2, it was Jenson Button and McLaren’s turn to miss out, with the Brit only managing to claim P14. Perez however faired better and made it though to Q3, but it does seem that what ever updates McLaren have brought to this race are just not working, particularly at low speeds (which does not bode well for Monaco either).

Of the others Sutil will be disappointed with P13, and the Saubers of Hulkenberg and Gutierrez never looked like they would be able to challenge for the higher teens, let alone the top ten shootout. A penalty for the younger Mexican means he’ll start 19th.

Q3

A typically cagey start to Q3 led to the now familiar queue of cars jockeying for position as the chequered flag fell. But it was Mercedes who will be celebrating tonight after scoring a fabulous one-two, with Rosberg taking pole with a storming 1:20.718 – more than a quarter of a second quicker than Hamilton’s second place time.

Further back Vettel put in a solid lap to be third, with Raikkonen fourth, followed by the two Ferraris of Alonso and Massa. The Brazilian will now start 9th afte a penalty for blocking Mark Webber during the session.

So, all in all it looks set for a great race tomorrow, with the Mercedes unproven race pace adding in a nice bit of uncertainty. And perhaps meaning that every lazy journos stat of the day, about the race being won from the front row every year since 1997, may be under threat tomorrow.

Full Spanish Grand Prix qualifying results

*3 place penalty for blocking. Massa now starts 9th

**3 place penalty for blocking. Gutierrez now starts 19th.