Mark Webber took advantage of the confusion caused by changeable conditions and a hastily-imposed restriction on 'blown' diffusers to bag his second pole position of the year at the Silverstone Circuit. He leads an all-Red Bull front row as his teammate Sebastian Vettel lines up in second place after a time a few tenths of a second slower, while the two Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa form the second row after a competitive showing.
Q1
With the sky looking rather overcast, just about everybody took the track on dry tyres before any rain materialised. Home hero Lewis Hamilton was one of the first to set a time, which was a 1'35.4 using the hard compound tyres. The two Ferraris of Alonso and Massa then proceeded to smash that time by the best part of two seconds, with even Vettel apparently unable to answer the sudden upsurge in the pace of the Prancing Horse after an initial effort a second slower. The championship leader didn't take long to amend the situation however, taking the top spot away from Alonso with a time a tenth quicker than the Spaniard, who incidentally took an unscheduled trip into the gravel at Luffield corner amidst his response. After equipping soft tyres, the Williams pairing of Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado both enjoyed brief spells as fastest driver, as did Massa on the hard tyres, but when the dust finally settled, it was Webber who had set the quickest time, a 1'32.7. Further down the order, both Toro Rosso drivers were inexplicably slow, leading to both of them being eliminated come the end of the session. On the other hand, Heikki Kovalainen was able to sneak his Lotus into Q2, but his teammate Jarno Trulli joined the Virgin and Hispania drivers in sitting out the rest of the afternoon, including highly-rated Australian debutant Daniel Ricciardo who has been placed at Hispania by sponsor Red Bull in place of Narain Karthikeyan for evaluation purposes – more about him in next week's post.
Eliminated – Jaime Alguersauri (Toro Rosso), Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso), Timo Glock (Virgin), Jarno Trulli (Lotus), Jerome D'Ambrosio (Virgin), Vitantonio Liuzzi (Hispania), Daniel Ricciardo (Hispania)
Q2
In between Q1 and Q2, a light shower erupted, but by the time the cars began to take to the track, it had already begun to dry. This presented a dilemma to the teams as to whether or not to send their drivers out with intermediate tyres. One team which decided to do exactly that was Mercedes, but it turned out to be the wrong choice as Nico Rosberg aborted his first flying lap and Michael Schumacher's lap was five seconds off the pace. Once again, Williams looked impressive as both its drivers set the fastest times early in the session, but as the track slowly began to dry out, Sergio Perez, Vitaly Petrov, Kamui Kobayashi and Adrian Sutil all did likewise until Alonso restored normality with a 1'31.7. Vettel could only muster a comparatively tardy 1'32.4, which seemed even more so when Webber took first place again with a time fractionally faster than Alonso's. Massa then went a tenth quicker than that just as the rain began to fall again, effectively freezing the order. This meant that Nick Heidfeld along with Barrichello, Perez, Petrov and Sutil were all left in the cold when the music stopped, despite having all led the way earlier in the session, whilst Schumacher simply couldn't pull the required lap time out of the bag. Unsuprisingly, Kovalainen's Lotus also lacked the requisite speed to make Q3.
Eliminated – Adrian Sutil (Force India), Sergio Perez (Sauber), Michael Schumacher (Mercedes), Vitaly Petrov (Renault), Rubens Barrichello (Williams), Nick Heidfeld (Renault), Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus)
Q3
With the track dry enough for slicks once more, Webber was the first to take to the track, setting a 1'30.4, a time of which Vettel fell less than a tenth short on his initial run. Hamilton's first run was two seconds off the pace after his McLaren team bizarrely opted to give him a worn set of slicks, his plight underlined by Alonso's time registering just a tenth slower than the Red Bull duo. Rosberg was also decidedly off the pace with a time only marginally better than that of Hamilton. Massa consolidated Ferrari's position by beating Button to fourth place by a margin of seven-tenths, with Paul Di Resta, Maldonado and Kobayashi all doing a commendable job to set the sixth, seventh and eighth fastest times respectively. Unfortunately for the Mercedes-powered cars (with the exception of Di Resta), the rain made another return, all but sealing Webber's pole position and the existing top ten order, even if Rosberg did try and improve his time regardless. He looked on course to gain several positions before finally abandoning the lap with several corners to go, leaving himself ninth and Hamilton a dejected tenth.
Top Ten – Mark Webber (Red Bull), Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), Fernando Alonso (Ferrari), Felipe Massa (Ferrari), Jenson Button (McLaren), Paul Di Resta (Force India), Pastor Maldonado (Williams), Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber), Nico Rosberg (Mercedes), Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
My Prediction
With rain looking likely to play at least a small part in Sunday's events, I'm going to predict something of an upset in the form of an overdue first win for Ferrari and Fernando Alonso:-
1. Alonso, 2. Webber, 3. Massa, 4. Button, 5. Kobayashi, 6. Hamilton, 7. Schumacher, 8. Di Resta, 9. Maldonado, 10. Perez
Admittedly, the absence of a certain German Red Bull driver from my prediction may smack of a liberal dose of optimism, but Canada showed that perhaps wet races do represent a minor weakness of the otherwise indefatigable reigning champion – a trip to some soggy gravel or an unaccommodating Armco barrier thus can't be ruled out. Conversely, Ferrari admitted that at the lottery that was Canada, 'their numbers didn't come up' in spite of a similarly strong starting position, so the law of averages dictates that luck should be more on the side of the Scuderia this time around, hence my forecasting Massa's maiden podium of the season. The McLarens will continue to suffer from a lack of speed, though this won't prevent a reasonable damage-limitation effort from Hamilton, with Kobayashi and Schumacher putting their wet-weather talents that were so heroically displayed at Canada to use once more to take home another hatful of points each. Sadly this will cost Di Resta and Maldonado a couple of places, but both will nonetheless score after a pair of solid drives, whilst Perez will make it three points-scoring rookies at Sutil's expense.
Of course, the rain means anything could happen if Canada is anything to go by, so make sure you come back here in twenty-four hours for a full rundown of events on what promises to be a thrilling British Grand Prix.
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