Tom Wilkinson’s Formula 1 Saturday Roundup

After all the dramas of yesterday, Qualifying was the main focus for the teams and drivers. This is my Saturday roundup.

FP3

The final practice session of the weekend got underway and as ever it was action packed with plenty of dramas. Romain Grosjean struggled to master the final chicane early on in the session as did a number of other drivers as the wind was behind the cars pushing them deeper into the corner. But there was no shortage of grip, Lewis Hamilton reported over the team radio the track was better than on Friday so it was encouraging. With that being the case many drivers were really attacking the corners and curbs. Mark Webber was running a skinnier front with compared to teammate Sebastian Vettel, the Australian also had plenty FloVis paint on the rear of the car.

Later on in the session Adrain Sutil crashed out half way through cutting short his running. The German lost the rear of the Force India on the exit of Spoon crashing into the barriers damaging the rear suspension. Nico Hulkenberg was looking to be out also with an exhaust problem, Sauber checked the car but resolved the problem quickly and Nico did complete the session. Sebastian Vettel however wasn’t so lucky, yes the other Red Bull did have a problem. It was KERS which was the cause and ended the session for the Championship leader. As ever Vettel looked relaxed about the situation, casually wondering around the garage.

It was an interesting session to analyse, Mercedes looking likely the closest challengers to Red Bull, but Lotus also look strong. Suzuka rewards a well balanced car and Lotus look good so far this weekend. Analysing the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso, it looked like he had a lot of understeer and was fighting the car particularly through the higher speed corners.

Top Ten Classification FP3

Webber – Red Bull
Hamilton – Mercedes
Rosberg – Mercedes
Grosjean – Lotus
Alonso – Ferrari
Massa – Ferrari
Button – McLaren
Raikkonen – Lotus
Vettel – Red Bull
Hulkenberg – Sauber

After Practice, the attention quickly moved to Qualifying.

Before Qualifying even got underway Force India’s Adrian Sutil was on the back foot as he was forced to change his gearbox after his earlier crash in final practice.

As the first session got underway it really was the usual formalities in the early stages, but things soon heated up in Sauber garage. Esteban Guteurrez had a fire while stationary in the garage, fuel had one onto the hot exhaust and ignited. The team very quickly attended to the fire and extinguished it almost immediately. Things were getting heated too out on track. Jean Eric Vergne suffered a severe fire on both rear breaks. The flames clear to see and the Frenchman soon parked up near a fire marshal. The session was stopped to recover the car and make sure smoke didn’t drift across the circuit. On the restart there was a very long queue down the pit lane and traffic was sure to be a problem. At the end of it all Romain Grosjean was fastest in the Lotus, Both Williams made it into Q2 and Sutil missed out. Max Chilton qualified well ahead of teammate Bianchi and both Caterham’s.

The second session didn’t quite have the same drama as the first but the times were mighty close. Hamilton and Alonso were battling up at the front early on but there was just seven tenths of a second between P1 and P12, it was looking like qualifying could be open to a number of drivers. Once the final session started Sebastian Vettel was struck with another KERS failure similar to what he had in the morning. It was working periodically but it wasn’t what the German wanted. It opened up possibilities to Mercedes and Ferrari, but it was teammate Mark Webber who snatched pole position, with Vettel rounding out the front row. Hamilton was third in the Mercedes but Ferrari couldn’t take advantage of a rare misfortune for Vettel.

Analysing Qualifying.

Romain Grosjean drove brilliantly once again finishing in fourth place well ahead of teammate Raikkonen who only managed ninth. Massa was ahead of Alonso once again and Hulkenberg kept up his recent performance finishing seventh. Paul DiResta said after qualifying that Force India should be happy with P12. Toro Rosso had a bad showing today, the fire on Vergne’s car meant he only managed P18 and Ricciardo didn’t do much better in P16. But Mark Webber stole the show at Red Bull and it was a very popular pole position. Will he keep the lead into turn one tomorrow? It’ll be a fascinating race to watch.

Here is the full result from Qualifying.

1 Mark Webber – Red Bull – 1:30.915
2 Sebastian Vettel – Red Bull – 1:31.089
3 Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes – 1:31.253
4 Romain Grosjean – Lotus – 1:31.365
5 Felipe Massa – Ferrari – 1:31.378
6 Nico Rosberg – Mercedes – 1:31.397
7 Nico Hulkenberg – Sauber – 1:31.644
8 Fernando Alonso – Ferrari – 1:31.665
9 Kimi Raikkonen – Lotus – 1:31.684
10 Jenson Button – McLaren – 1:31.827
11 Sergio Perez – McLaren – 1:31.989
12 Paul DiResta – Force India – 1:31.992
13 Valtteri Bottas – Williams – 1:32.013
14 Esteban Gutierrez – Sauber – 1:32.063
15 Pastor Maldonado – Williams – 1:32.093
16 Daniel Ricciardo – Toro Rosso – 1:32.485
17 Adrian Sutil – Force India – 1:32.890
18 Jean Eric Vergne – Toro Rosso – 1:33.357
19 Max Chilton – Marussia – 1:34.320
20 Charls Pic – Caterham – 1:34.556
21 Giedo Van Der Garde – Caterham – 1:34.879
22 Jules Bianchi – Marussia – 1:34.958

There are Grid Penalties to consider ahead of tomorrow's race at Suzuka.

For now that’s it from the wonderful Suzuka circuit, the sun is setting and everyone is looking forward to tomorrows race. Join me on Twitter @TomWilkinsonF1 for Live coverage of the race, Driving For Pleasure is the place to be this weekend.