F1-Blog

And who says the current qualify system is boring…

Well me most of the time, however it produced a spanking Quali for Japan, however the weather helped out.

Before the start of the session it looked like it was not going to happen, the clouds where so low the safety helicopter could not fly. However Charlie Whiting obviously decided that the drivers could be ambulanced over road to hospitals if there was an need to.

Session one saw a fair few of the drivers struggling, however as the session progressed the times came tumbling down, obviously the track condition was improving, and the drivers getting used to the track.

There was an issue though, Lewis Hamilton was only in 18th in his McLaren, and it looked like he was struggling. Not the case it turns out, he popped a fast lap in towards the end of the session (in fact with no time in the session left), and made it into Q2.

Toyota driver Ralf Schumacher had a coming together with Sakon Yamamoto and even though he made it into Q2, could not take part. Others out in Q1 were Rubens, Alex Wurz, Anthony Davidson, Taku, Adrian Sutil and Sakon.

Making it into Q2 was Jenson Button though, with a great drive in the Honda, showing a driver can make the difference, just so long as the conditions allow him.

The Q2 session saw a lot of the drivers switch to the intermediate tyres, and start to put faster times in. Lewis Hamilton finished fastest in Q2. With surprise as Jenson also made it into Q3, first time this year.

Drivers to struggle in the conditions, and hence not make it into the Q1 session where, David Coulthard, Giancarlo Fisichella, Heikki Kovalainen, Jarno Trulli and Tonio Liuzzi (and Ralf obviously as he did not take part). Surprise people into the Q3 session are Jenson Button, and Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso.

Q1 was were all the excitment was however, the ‘big four’ duked it out all session, with it looking like Fernando would again get the better of his younger team mate, but in the dying seconds, and with a new set of lightly scrubbed intermediates on, Lewis Hamilton put an immense lap in to take the top spot. The onboard footage of the lap is a marvel, it’s immediately obvious that the boy has incredible car control skills.

So a well done to the McLaren team for keeping their heads, when it could have all gone wrong. I also want to say well done to Jenson, as his driving was sublime.

We look forward to the race now, let’s hope the weather stays as it was for Qualifying.

Results

1. HAMILTON McLaren
2. ALONSO McLaren
3. RAIKKONEN Ferrari
4. MASSA Ferrari
5. HEIDFELD BMW
6. BUTTON Honda
7. WEBBER Red Bull
8. VETTEL Toro Rosso
9. KUBICA BMW
10. FISICHELLA Renault
11. KOVALAINEN Renault
12. COULTHARD Red Bull
13. TRULLI Toyota
14. LIUZZI Toro Rosso
15. SCHUMACHER Toyota
16. ROSBERG Williams*
17. BARRICHELLO Honda
18. WURZ Williams
19. DAVIDSON Super Aguri
20. SUTIL Spyker
21. SATO Super Aguri
22. YAMAMOTO Spyker