Saturday, July 6, 2013

Lewis Hamilton scores Pole for Mercedes in Germany

Lewis Hamilton scores Pole for Mercedes in Germany


Lewis Hamilton snatches the pole position in Germany for the German team.

It was an interesting formula one qualifying in Germany. In the Q1, only Redbull and Mercedes used medium tyres, and all the other teams had to resort to soft tyres to qualify. The soft tyre is about 1.5 seconds faster than the medium tyres. This shows that Mercedes and Redbull have an edge over others in this circuit.

Eliminations in Q1 in German Grand Prix

The usual suspects were eliminated in the Q1, namely:
Valtteri Bottas and Pastor Maldonado, Charles Pic, Jules Bianchi, Geido Van der Garde, Max Chilton. There was slightly nearly four and half seconds difference between the fastest and the slowest car in Q1.

Sergio Perez was in danger of not qualifying for Q2 as he was down at 18th position before he put together a lap in the dying seconds of Q1 to move into Q2.

Intense drama in Q2 in German Grand Prix 2013

There was lot of drama in the Q2
In the Q2, the Red Bull team kept their drivers in their garage and released them with about five and half minutes remaining what appeared to be for a single run. They appeared to be saving their soft tyres. Vettel and Webber posted identical sector times in S1 and S2 but webber scored a slower S3 and as a result Vettel took P1 position in Q2 ahead of Hamilton and Webber.

Mercedes decided not to run their drivers again as they were initially 1-2. However, in the dying seconds of Q2, Grosjean came ahead of Hamilton and then Alonso scored a provisional P1 to be just inched by his team mate Felipe Massa. Then Ricciardo, Hulkenberg and Jenson Button all pushed through to push out Nico Rosberg out of Q3. Kimi Raikkonen did a flyer to score P2 in Q2 in the last few seconds. The difference between Hamilton was 1:30.152 and Rosberg 1:30.326

Drivers eliminated in Q2 in F1 German Grand Prix 2013


11. Nico Rosberg Mercedes
12. Paul di Resta Force India
13. Sergio Perez McLaren
14. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber
15. Adrian Sutil Force India
16. Jean Eric Vergne Toro Rosso

In Q3, both the Ferrari drivers and Jenson Button of McLaren came out on medium tyres. Perhaps they expect the soft tyre not to last only for a short time so that they will get advantage if they use a medium tyre.

There was a fight for the pole as Vettel went fractionally ahead of Hamilton with a great third sector. However, Hamilton hit back by knocking off 0.2 seconds in the first sector, matching Vettel in the second sector and again besting him in the third sector. So Lewis Hamilton scored 1:29.398 seconds to Sebastian Vettel’s time of 1:29.501 seconds. It was a happy moment for Mercedes as they got the Pole in Germany, their home country. The German fans roared when Lewis Hamilton scored the pole. The blow of Nico Rosberg, a german driver of Mercedes not qualifying for the Q3 was forgotten.

Mark Webber or Red Bull scored P3 with a time of 1:29.608 followed by Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus who scored 1:29.892. Both of them will start in the second row.

Romain Grosjean of Lotus scored P5 with time of 1:29.959 and Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso scored P6 with 1:30.528.

Felipe Massa of Ferrari came ahead of his teammate Fernando Alonso for the 7th and 8th positions with times of 1:31.126 and 1:31.209 respectively.

Jenson Button of McLaren and Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber didn’t register a time. This allows them to choose a tyre ie. both of them can either start with soft tyre or medium tyres.

It is a proud moment for Nico Hulkenberg, another German, to be on P10 as his previous races this year are forgettable.

It would be a very interesting race tomorrow in the F1 German Grand Prix 2013

No comments: