Saturday, April 22, 2006
# posted by Rich @ 6:36 AM
San Marino qualifying: report
Michael Schumacher, as predicted, took pole position for the 2006 San Marino Grand Prix and in the process broke Ayrton Senna's 12 year old record of 65 career poles. More on that later though. Second fastest was Button, with his Honda teammate Rubens Barrichello a somewhat surprising 3rd. Schumacher's pole time of 1:22.795 was just under two tenths faster than Button, who was in turn just over two tenths faster than Barrichello, who seems a lot more comfortable in the Honda this weekend, having done a lot of work with the team to improve the braking in the car.
The top ten were rounded out by Massa, Alonso, Ralf, Montoya, and Raikkonen, Trulli, and Webber.
A rather incident-free qualifying saw no major dramas. In Q1, the drivers eliminated were Klein, Speed, Monteiro, Albers, Sato, and Ide. Q2 saw the elimination of Fisichella, Villeneuve, Rosberg, Coulthard, Hiedfeld, and Liuzzi. Fisichella and Rosberg were somewhat surprise eliminations, especially given that Fisichella has a new spec Renault engine for this race, which might suggest problems wih the new engine. The only drama of qualifying was Heidfeld chucking his BMW into the tyresat the exit of Rivazza 2 right at the end of Q2.
Q3 saw no real dramas either, but the big question is how much fuel the cars have on board. We know that the Renault of Alonso is fast, and his pace in qualifying seems to indicate he has a lot of fuel on board. The same is true of the McLarens, although I would have thought they would want to be nearer the front to avoid any first lap dramas.
So, we'll see how it all plays out, and how my predictions hold up. My Pole prediction turned out to be correct, but I have to say that I have never been so unhappy to be right...
The top ten were rounded out by Massa, Alonso, Ralf, Montoya, and Raikkonen, Trulli, and Webber.
A rather incident-free qualifying saw no major dramas. In Q1, the drivers eliminated were Klein, Speed, Monteiro, Albers, Sato, and Ide. Q2 saw the elimination of Fisichella, Villeneuve, Rosberg, Coulthard, Hiedfeld, and Liuzzi. Fisichella and Rosberg were somewhat surprise eliminations, especially given that Fisichella has a new spec Renault engine for this race, which might suggest problems wih the new engine. The only drama of qualifying was Heidfeld chucking his BMW into the tyresat the exit of Rivazza 2 right at the end of Q2.
Q3 saw no real dramas either, but the big question is how much fuel the cars have on board. We know that the Renault of Alonso is fast, and his pace in qualifying seems to indicate he has a lot of fuel on board. The same is true of the McLarens, although I would have thought they would want to be nearer the front to avoid any first lap dramas.
So, we'll see how it all plays out, and how my predictions hold up. My Pole prediction turned out to be correct, but I have to say that I have never been so unhappy to be right...
Labels: Formula 1, Grand Prix
If the fonts on this page look blocky and naff, it's probably because you are using Internet Explorer, which currently does not display antialiased (cleartype) fonts consistently when alpha transparency is used. I suggest you upgrade to Safari, Camino, Opera, or Firefox. While you're at it, get a Mac.
