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Saturday, September 8, 2012

Qualifying at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza


It may be unfair that Romain Grosjean was given a one race suspension for causing the first corner collision (and may be too harsh a punishment to some), it is wonderful to Jerome d'Ambrosio back behind the wheel of a Formula One car. Without having much running time this year, d'Ambrosio appears to be holding up quite well under the pressure. Only the race will see what he can really (hopefully) do.

Q1 and it appeared everything was running smooth. The drivers and cars were making it around track (minus the cut off to avoid 'catching air' over the speed bumps). And d'Ambrosio managed to just squeak into the Q2 ahead of Kovalainen. To the delight of many Indian fans, Narain Karthikeyan had out qualified his teammate Pedro de la Rosa for the first time this season.

Q2 and immediately there were cars and drivers on track. With limited running, d'Ambrosio was leading the pack. Needed as much time in the E20 for the race, the team had him out the moment the time started to tick.

Mid way through the session, it seemed that all eyes were training on the Sauber drivers. With their amazing qualifying performances last week, fans and media were looking to see if the pair could do it again. It was looking good for the team, getting at least one of their drivers into the top ten shoot out. The upset for Q2 was that Mark Webber failed to make it into the top ten, but if you look back to last weekend's race, Webber's teammate Sebastian Vettel failed to make the top ten and went on to claim 2nd place.

During all three sessions in qualifying, you could see plainly that Autodromo Nazionale Monza is showing being out grown by Formula One. The cars and drivers are getting to quick and with the fast corners and sharp turns, many drivers have had to miss both the corners and chicanes by running into the run-offs and avoiding and flight time (hitting the kerbs).

Top Ten shoot out and the fans got to see what they paid for. Coming down to the last few seconds in Q3 and it was an all out race. Like Karthikeyan, Felipe Massa was able to out qualify his teammate (and current World Driver's Champion leader) Fernando Alonso. Di Resta proved that he could be handed a five place  grid penalty and still be within the top ten. The last few seconds were just pure adrenalin!

If qualifying was any sort of foreshadow for the race tomorrow, we are in for quite a race!

vmm Lewis Hamilton P1  
vmm Jenson Button P2 
Ferrari Felipe Massa P3  
MCP Michael Schumacher P4
rbr Sebastian Vettel P5   gstar Fan's Choice To Win
MCP Nico Rosberg P6
LRGP Kimi Räikkönen P7
sauber Kaumi Kobayashi P8
Force Paul di Resta P9
Ferrari Fernando Alonso P10
rbr Mark Webber P11
sauber Sergio Perez P12
Will Bruno Senna P13
rosso Daniel Ricciardo P14
LRGP Jerome d'Ambrosio P15
rosso Jean-Éric Vergne P16
lotus Heikki Kovalainen P17
lotus Vitaly Petrov P18
MVR Timo Glock P19
MVR Charles Pic P20
HRT Narain Karthikeyan P21
Will Pastor Maldonado P22
HRT Pedro de la Rosa P23
Force Nico Hulkenberg No time set



Q1 107% Time 1:30.067

Note - Maldonado drops five grid spots for a jump start and five for causing a collision at the previous round. Di Resta drops five for an unscheduled gearbox change.



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