I'd like to see them all declare fuel loads before Q1, Q1 and Q2 as per now. But Q3 should be low-fuel. Fastest driver in Q3 gets 20 lottery balls, every tenth slower you lose a ball. First out the hat gets pole, second gets second etc. Muhahahaha!
Massa's light, I reckon. I half-slept through the qual, as I was up all last night, but the track looks really spectacular, and it should be a good race. It'll be won in the pitlane though, baring glaring driver errors, so Hamilton will need to drive his socks off on his in-laps if he's to have any chance of winning.
The pit enterance/exit is really bizarre, I hope it doesn't cause problems in the race.
Massa's lap was really great, and probably not down to fuel as much as some Hamilton fans would like to believe :P
Seriously though, I would say that I am a fan of Hamiltons driving and don't really know him well enough to judge him based on his interviews, but some comments on this forum are rediculous. You want Massa to crash so that Hamilton can win?! Oh-kay...
The great thing is Barichello was given a 10,000 euro fine because he didn't slow down to enter the pits in the deceleration zone - the same place Heidfeld got penalized for.
Well Hamilton has been performing extremely well lately. Ferrari looked almost nervous. Did you see the guy in the pit (I'm sure he's a well known important 'guy'...) almost on the verge of tears when Massa crossed the line to take Pole?
Hamilton's the clear technical favourite, but we'll see. I'm a Kimi and Massa fan with the Lego set to prove it.
Yeah I agree with you for sure. It just seems people spite certain drivers for ridiculous reasons, or hope another driver crashes just so their fav can win.
Nice lap! I think Massa wins this if his car lasts. The other cars seem too hard to drive... that and Lewis over-agressive style will probably mean to much tyre wear, but we'll see.
Should be interesting to see Alonso climbing the field too, although he already said it's impossible to overtake and everything is lost.
One thing that really caought my eye on one point was how rough Buttocks seemed to be with his car. Maybe the Honda is hard to drive fast but Buttocks was almost like on/off with the throttle and just threw that car into corners by stabbing the steering wheel. Didn't even look fast. But when has Jensson been fast?
As for other drivers I'm really interested to see whether Kovalainen could match the speed with the guys in front of him. in races he seems to lose some speed and hasn't been able to challenge the quick guys yet but in qualis he's been quite good. At least he has lots and lots of fuel
Not really. According to this (portuguese only) he said "obviously the tyre choice didn't work as well today in Q3, where I touched the walls a few times, wich unfornately made me lose time" (I'm translating from pt so it might be slightly different than what he actually said). Looks like he screwed.
If Massa WINS he will be on 87 points. If Kimi doesn't score any points he will stay on 57. That's 30 points over 3 races but Massa would have more wins then Kimi so Kimi would be out of the championship if things go to that scenario.
Yep, very bad for Nick. The penalty is completely unreasonable.
And he has good chance of that here. His starting position is on the clean side of the track. Being a very green track, the advantage would be even greater than usual.
The Renault's rain performance is questionable, and with the track lacking any decent overtaking opportunities, he's lost. From the post-qualifying interviews, he seems to have lost all hope. The only decent chance of him moving up the grid is if others lose places in front of him and he has a strong strategy.
What was the problem with his car anyway? Commentary said his fuel pump wasn't delivering?
I wasn't hugely impressed this time. Bourdais had car problems, because the rear end kept pulling to one side under braking; with a trouble-free run, he might have been pretty close to Vettel.
Having said that, kudos to Vettel for mixing it up with the big boys.
By "hugely impressed", I mean that I'm not as impressed as in the Italian GP. The novelty has worn off.
I'm still chuffed that he's placed himself as high up the grid as he has, but I'm mindful of the opinions from some players in the paddock that the STR3-Ferrari is roughly the same as the BMW in potential performance, and that Bourdais didn't get a clean run in Q3.