Pole Sitter Sebastian Vettel
Well that was the 1st qualifying session of 2010 with a mixture of results.
Quickest of the day was German driver Sebastian Vettel as he stormed to pole position with a 1m54.101s, 0.9s clear of Alonso who had held provisional pole for most of the 10 minute session in his Ferrari, one of the few teams that went for two qualifying runs in the final session.
With RBR very much under the radar for most of pre practice the 22 year old German certainly grabbed the bull by the horns and hooked up a perfect lap
Felipe Massa out qualifying team mate Fernando Alonso for 2nd on the grid was surprise for most as Alonso looked as though he had the edge on Massa for most for the morning.
One surprise was McLarens qualifying pace, it wasn’t what was anticipated by all you McLaren fans with Hamilton and Button somewhat off the pace and unable to compete for pole position leaving Hamilton on the second row and 4th on the grid alongside old foe Alonso and Button down in 8th only just scraping into quail 3. Button looks like he still has some work to do getting up to speed with the MP4-25 as he appeared to experience the kind of troubled qualifying session characteristic of the second half of his 2009 title campaign.
Meanwhile Schumacher had rather a lacklustre return to F1 being the first time he had experienced the shootout qualifying structure of Formula One today. Starting on the grid a disappointing seventh & consistently 3 tenths off the pace of team mate Nico Rosberg who lines up on the grid in fifth.
Mark Webber also had a low key approach to the 2010 season with a massive 1.2 seconds off the pace of team mate Vettel and only managing sixth place, with Robert Kubica (Renault) and Adrian Sutil (Force India) no doubt more pleased with their respective ninth & tenth position.
Rubens Barrichello just missed out of Q3 with new his new team Williams being nudged down to eleventh on the grid. The sister William of Nico Hulkenberg dropped half a seconded off Barrichello on his first experience of F1 qualifying, although having proved consistently faster in pre practice Nico lines up thirteenth.
F1’s first Russian Vitaly Petrov will start his maiden F1 voyage from row nine – a position not too dissimilar to those inexperienced Renault drivers have found themselves in over recent seasons.
The three new comers to F1 proving to be consistently over five seconds off the pace throughout pre practice meant that, barring major mistakes from others, only one of the established teams cars was in danger of joining the six new comers in Q1 elimination.
That man turned out to be Torro Rosso’s Jaime Algusuari, who slumps down to seventeenth lapping 9 tenths off the pace of team mate Sebastian Buemi.
Virgin can claim the right to brag being the quickest of the new boys positioning themselves well for a season-long battle with Lotus after Timo Glock managed to out qualify F1 veteran Jarno Truli & race winner Heikki Kovalinen.
Behind Lucas di Grassi in the second Virgin in 22nd The Hispania Racing team finishes the grid.
With Karun Chandhok sitting out of all 3 practice sessions Chandhok effectively used his qualifying as installation laps and a shakedown of the car in front of millions of people instead of behind closed doors as it is traditionally done. Never the less Chandhok performed well completing 7 laps and posting a best time just 1.6 seconds slower than Bruno Senna, who has enjoyed considerably more track time in practice.
Bahrain GP starting grid
1 VETTEL Red Bull
2 MASSA Ferrari
3 ALONSO Ferrari
4 HAMILTON McLaren
5 ROSBERG Mercedes
6 WEBBER Red Bull
7 SCHUMACHER Mercedes
8 BUTTON McLaren
9 KUBICA Renault
10 SUTIL Force India
11 BARRICHELLO Williams
12 LIUZZI Force India
13 HULKENBERG Williams
14 DE LA ROSA Sauber
15 BUEMI Toro Rosso
16 KOBAYASHI Sauber
17 PETROV Renault
18 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso
19 GLOCK Virgin
20 TRULLI Lotus
21 KOVALAINEN Lotus
22 DI GRASSI Virgin
23 SENNA HRT
24 CHANDHOK HRT
