F1 – ALL BRAWN AND PLENTY OF BRAINS
- 27 May 2013
For the first time since 1970, when Ken Tyrrell’s eponymous team
The two Brawn cars were the two quickest in all three qualifying sessions with Rubens topping the first two and holding provisional pole until Button pipped him on his final run. Considering their earlier performance the Williams were a bit disappointing as only Rosberg (5th) made the top ten while Toyota had both drivers times disallowed due to excessive flexing in their rear wings. Red Bull were the only other team to get both drivers into the top ten shoot-out with Vettel claiming an excellent third fastest and Mark Webber finished in 10th after an under-par final lap.
"I'm not rapped with my last lap. My previous flying laps had gone well, so I would have liked a better result, but that's where we are so we'll try to make something from the race. The bumps were quite bad in Turn nine on the final run. The team's done a good job and we've worked well through our programme over the winter. It's a shame I didn't get the best time in qualifying, but we'll see how we go from there tomorrow." said Mark.
As with yesterdays practice all the top four teams from last year struggled and only BMW-Sauber made any progress at all. Both Kubica (4th) and Nick Heidfeld (9th) will start in the top half of the field but only because both Toyotas have been relegated to the back of the grid due to their illegal wings. Both Ferrari drivers sit at the wrong end of the top ten starting 6th (Massa) and 7th (Raikkonen) while the McLarens had an absolute shocker with only Kovalainen taking part in the second qualifying session and finishing last in that. Hamilton would have taken part however a gearbox failure put him out and after his grid place penalty for changing said gearbox he will start in 18th place.
Renault were not much better and it was only a totally balls out lap from Alonso that gave him 12th fastest time. He will start from 10th on the grid while poor old Piquet will line up back in 14th. A crap car almost killed off his F1 career before it really got started at the beginning of last year and it looks as if another crap car may complete the job this year. It’s difficult to assess a young drivers talent when he is provided with rubbish cars by a good team and he is up against an experienced dual world champion team-mate.
QUALIFYING TIMES Pos Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3 1. Button Brawn-Mercedes 1:25.211 1:24.855 1:26.202 2. Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes 1:25.006 1:24.783 1:26.505 3. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:25.938 1:25.121 1:26.830 4. Kubica BMW-Sauber 1:25.922 1:25.152 1:26.914 5. Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:25.846 1:25.123 1:26.973 6. Glock Toyota 1:25.499 1:25.281 1:26.975 7. Massa Ferrari 1:25.844 1:25.319 1:27.033 8. Trulli Toyota 1:26.194 1:25.265 1:27.127 9. Raikkonen Ferrari 1:25.899 1:25.380 1:27.163 10. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:25.427 1:25.241 1:27.246 11. Heidfeld BMW-Sauber 1:25.827 1:25.504 12. Alonso Renault 1:26.026 1:25.605 13. Nakajima Williams-Toyota 1:26.074 1:25.607 14. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 1:26.184 1:25.726 15. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:26.454 no time 16. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:26.503 17. Piquet Renault 1:26.598 18. Fisichella Force India-Mercedes 1:26.677 19. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:26.742 20. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:26.964