Sunday, May 14, 2006
# posted by Rich @ 4:42 AM
Spain qualifying: report
Fernando Alonso took pole position in front of his home fans with a time of 1:14.648, and is looking strong for a home win, with his teammate Giancarlo Fisichella alongside him on the front row. Fisichella was a half a tenth slower. Michael Schumacher was third fastest, with a time of 1:14.970, and will line up alongside Massa, whose time of 1:15.442 seems to indicate a different pit-stop strategy. The rest of the top ten is rounded out by Barrichello, Ralf, Trulli, Button, Raikkonen, and Heidfeld.
Q1 threw up a surprise early on - David Coulthard spun and crashed his Red Bull car on his first flying lap, thus eliminating himself from qualifying. This meant that one of the the "usual 6" would progres to Q2 by default, and it was Liuzzi who advanced for the second race in a row.
Q2 threw up a few more surprises, not least of which was that Montoya could manage no better than 12th. The two Williams cars were also somewhat less than impressive, with Webber 11th and Rosberg 13th, although they have seemed to have favoured running very long first stints, and this could explain their lack of performance.
With the cars lining up on the grid in practically team order (Renault, Renault, Ferrari, Ferrari, Honda, Toyota, Toyota, Honda), it might turn out to be a dull race (the teams test here so often that they know the track like the insides of their eyelids, and so the races become somewhat processional), but it does serve to highlight the differences between the cars.
Will Alonso win? I think so, but we'll have to see what the other players can do about it.
Q1 threw up a surprise early on - David Coulthard spun and crashed his Red Bull car on his first flying lap, thus eliminating himself from qualifying. This meant that one of the the "usual 6" would progres to Q2 by default, and it was Liuzzi who advanced for the second race in a row.
Q2 threw up a few more surprises, not least of which was that Montoya could manage no better than 12th. The two Williams cars were also somewhat less than impressive, with Webber 11th and Rosberg 13th, although they have seemed to have favoured running very long first stints, and this could explain their lack of performance.
With the cars lining up on the grid in practically team order (Renault, Renault, Ferrari, Ferrari, Honda, Toyota, Toyota, Honda), it might turn out to be a dull race (the teams test here so often that they know the track like the insides of their eyelids, and so the races become somewhat processional), but it does serve to highlight the differences between the cars.
Will Alonso win? I think so, but we'll have to see what the other players can do about it.
Labels: Formula 1, Grand Prix, Spain
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