F1 2013: The Ozzie GP, with an odd start..

[Ferry_vO]

Qualifying today was cut short due to extremely bad weather, causing a postpone to the start of the Q1 session and a cancellation of Q2 and Q3. The last two sessions will now be run on Sunday morning, a few hours before the race.
A very wet Q1 saw spins and crashes from Hamilton, Massa, van der Garde, Pic, Gutierrez and others making it a messy twenty minutes.
No more rain is expected for tomorrow.

Results of Q1:

1
Nico Rosberg
Mercedes AMG
1:43.380

2
Fernando Alonso
Ferrari
1:43.850


3
Romain Grosjean
Lotus
1:44.284


4
Sergio Pérez
McLaren
1:44.300


5
Mark Webber
Red Bull
1:44.472


6
Felipe Massa
Ferrari
1:44.635


7
Sebastian Vettel
Red Bull
1:44.657


8
Jenson Button
McLaren
1:44.688


9
Jean-Éric Vergne
Toro Rosso
1:44.871


10
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes AMG
1:45.456


11
Kimi Räikkönen
Lotus
1:45.545


12
Paul Di Resta
Force India
1:45.601


13
Nico Hülkenberg
Sauber
1:45.930


14
Daniel Ricciardo
Toro Rosso
1:46.450


15
Valtteri Bottas
Williams
1:47.328


16
Adrian Sutil
Force India
1:47.330


17
Pastor Maldonado
Williams
1:47.614


18
Esteban Gutiérrez
Sauber
1:47.776


19
Jules Bianchi
Marussia
1:48.147


20
Max Chilton
Marussia
1:48.909


21
Giedo van der Garde
Caterham
1:49.519


22
Charles Pic
Caterham
1:50.626

Because there's one team less compared to last season, six drivers will not make it trough Q1, and another six will retire after Q2 leaving ten cars for Q3 as usual.

 

[wombat666]

Was it ever wet!!!
Not many of us locals complaining as the precipitation has ended a record hot and dry spell.
Q2 and Q3 are scheduled to start at 11.00AM DST, which will tighten the day up.
At least we were tucked up and looked after rather well, unlike the poor sods who waited and waited and waited for the action they'd paid money to see.
Same goes for Jafo and his fellow course workers, a wet arse and no fish.
Sunday could be 'interesting' if the weather turns out as forecast!

 

[Ferry_vO]

Still a wet track at the start of Q2, and here are the ones that won't start in Q3:

11.Hulkenberg (Sauber)
12.Sutil (Force India)
13.Vergne (Toro Rosso)
14.Ricciardo (Toro Rosso)
15.Perez (McLaren)
16.Bottas (Williams)

 

[Ferry_vO]

Q3 on a drying track, with drivers switching from intermediates to slicks halfway through the session.

1:Vettel (Red Bull)
2:Webber (Red Bull)
3:Hamilton (Mercedes)
4:Massa (Ferrari)
5:Alonso (Ferrari)
6:Rosberg (Mercedes)
7:Raikkonen (Lotus)
8:Grosjean (Lotus)
9i Resta (Force India)
10:Button (McLaren)

 

[Ferry_vO]

Interesting race, with a somewhat surprising winner! Good job from Lotus and Kimi, doing only two stops while the others had to do three. Ferrari looking strong all weekend, Red bull not so good, especially on the soft tires. Mercedes doing OK though reliability could still be an issue. McLaren passed by both Lotus and Mercedes it seems, with only Button able to score a few points. Force India did a strong race too, with Sutil even leading for a while. Shame he had to do ten laps of the soft tires which just wasn't possible, not even with a light fuel load.

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts
1	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	58	1:30:03.225	7	25
2	3	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	58	+12.4 secs	5	18
3	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	58	+22.3 secs	1	15
4	4	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	58	+33.5 secs	4	12
5	10	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	58	+45.5 secs	3	10
6	2	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	58	+46.8 secs	2	8
7	15	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	58	+65.0 secs	12	6
8	14	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	58	+68.4 secs	9	4
9	5	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	58	+81.6 secs	10	2
10	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	58	+82.7 secs	8	1
11	6	Sergio Perez	McLaren-Mercedes	58	+83.3 secs	15
12	18	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Ferrari	58	+83.8 secs	13
13	12	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	57	+1 Lap	18
14	17	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Renault	57	+1 Lap	16
15	22	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Cosworth	57	+1 Lap	19
16	20	Charles Pic	Caterham-Renault	56	+2 Laps	22
17	23	Max Chilton	Marussia-Cosworth	56	+2 Laps	20
18	21	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham-Renault	56	+2 Laps	21
Ret	19	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	39	+19 Laps	14
Ret	9	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	26	+32 Laps	6
Ret	16	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	24	Spin	17
Ret	11	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber-Ferrari	0	Fuel System	11

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[Panther_99FS]

- Love that win by Kimi!
- Good to see Massa in the top 6! (I still only count points to the top 6)
- Great strong 1st race finish by Hamiltion to quiet down early on those who questioned his move to Mercedes

 

[Jafo]

Ah....am recovering from the GP.....it was a great 4 days as always...in spite of the weather [hey, I do Phillip Island for the Moto and SBK ...so I'm tough] ..... good to see Kimi win....always love his effusive ebulience...

Re the rain and maybe missing out on action....you can feel for the spectators back in Adelaide when we had the World's shortest GP race....13 laps....sitting around for an hour and a half waiting to see if we could restart only to run out of satellite time anyway...so it was canned at 15.30.
Good thing for me, though...as it took me that long to dry off enough to write the report re Mansell hitting the wall Driver's right at T3 ....whilst second, following leader [Senna]... part of the reason the race was canned. [forget what year it was...88 or 89 ...some-when about then]...

 

[wombat666]

Ah....am recovering from the GP.....it was a great 4 days as always...in spite of the weather [hey, I do Phillip Island for the Moto and SBK ...so I'm tough] ..... good to see Kimi win....always love his effusive ebulience...

Re the rain and maybe missing out on action....you can feel for the spectators back in Adelaide when we had the World's shortest GP race....13 laps....sitting around for an hour and a half waiting to see if we could restart only to run out of satellite time anyway...so it was canned at 15.30.
Good thing for me, though...as it took me that long to dry off enough to write the report re Mansell hitting the wall Driver's right at T3 ....whilst second, following leader [Senna]... part of the reason the race was canned. [forget what year it was...88 or 89 ...some-when about then]...

I'm pretty sure it was 1989 Jafo, IIRC Senna rear ended martin Brundle on the back straight as visibility was impossible, then decided the race might as well be called as he had no chance of catching Prost for the championship..
Prost went up in my estimation 110% as he refused to take the start, a decision that takes more testicular fortitude than just getting into a car and 'Racing'.