Round five of the 2012 Formula One season and the have made their way to Europe. Many fans think that this is where the 'real' season starts as you can read just about anywhere that teams and cars and designed to work best on these circuits. Many drivers have also been quoted o saying that the fly away races are just 'free points'. But with the new scoring system, those first 100 points (for driver) and 172 (for constructor) are a huge gain (of loss).
With the wait between races at nearly three weeks, fans have been anxiously waiting for the Spanish Grand Prix weekend to start and for the first 5 minutes of Q1, the track was completely silent. Even the smaller teams had held back. Almost 10 minutes in and David Coulthard finally made a sound. I must admit it was great to hear the cars and nothing but, but when you live with a 'non-F1' fan, it's a bit annoying.
Out in Q1 we saw Senna (who went off track and through the kitty litter in a spectacular skid in the final seconds), Petrov, Pic (who, for the second race weekend in a row out qualified his experienced teammate) Kovalainen, Glock, de la Rosa and Karthikeyan.
Q2 and a huge upset with both Webber and Button's. Entering the pits in P3 and ending up in P12, Red Bull Mark Webber did not make it into Q3. McLaren's Jenson Button remained out track, fighting for Q3 but succumbed to the same fate as Webber.
As Webber and Button did not make it into Q3, Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi did but was sidelined at the very end of Q2 with a technical issue and was unable to continue any further in Qualifier.
Q3 and the temperatures have started to drop. Many teams seem to be questioning the idea of not sending their drivers out in Q3 as part of the tyre strategy. With Vettel coming out and performing a lap at half the speed usually seen on the soft tyres and immediately entering the pits, fans are also wondering.
Seeing the teams and driver's coming out and only doing an installation lap, many fans that are part of the audience must be in arms. Paying to see the excitement of the top ten shoot out, all they are getting to see is the drivers (all but Hamilton) taking it slow around the track (with in the first 8 minutes). With 1.45s left on the times, only one driver had a hot lap, qualifying at Circuit de Catalunya brings up the argument again for qualifying tyres. With only seconds left on the timer, the drivers entered the track and started wiping Hamilton off the top spot (which he managed to regain at the very last moment).
Even without much action on track, Q3 ended up being one of the most exciting top ten shoot outs in some time. The crowds were able to see their hometown hero, Alonso, take fastest lap (momentarily), an underdog, Maldonado, take P1 from McLaren's Hamilton, only for him to take it back. what an amazing 1.30 seconds of qualifying!
 Lewis Hamilton | P1  Fan's Choice To Win |
| Pastor Maldonado | P2 |
 Fernando Alonso | P3 |
 Romain Grosjean | P4 |
| Kimi Räikkönen | P5 |
 Sergio Perez | P6 |
 Nico Rosberg | P7 |
 Sebastian Vettel | P8 |
| Michael Schumacher | P9 |
| Kamui Kobayashi | P10 |
| Jenson Button | P11 |
| Mark Webber | P12 |
 Paul di Resta | P13 |
| Nico Hulkenberg | P14 |
 Jean-Éric Vergne | P15 |
| Daniel Ricciaro | P16 |
| Felipe Massa | P17 |
 Bruno Senna | P18 |
 Vitaly Petrov | P19 |
 Charles Pic | P20 |
| Heikki Kovalainen | P21 |
| Timo Glock | P22 |
 Pedro de la Rosa | P23 |
| Narain Karthikeyan | DNQ |
Q1 107% Time is 1:28.363
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