F1 News
- April 5, 2008
A Pole on Pole
Robert Kubica has started the weekend well for the BMW Sauber team by giving the team their first pole position.
Mario Theissen seemed overjoyed, and told Robert so while the driver was returning to the pits.
Behind Robert was a close battle between last years race winner Filipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren.
Kimi Raikkonen looked to be running longer than Filipe on fuel and popped his Ferarri into the fourth spot with Heikki Kovalainen a few hundredths behind him in fifth.
Nick Heidfeld put in his fast lap, then pulled into the pits happy with it and sat out the last few minutes of the Q3 session.
Jarno Trulli showed that the Toyota certainly has true pace this season as he was the best of the rest behind the BMW’s, Ferrari’s and McLaren’s.
The Toyota powered Williams of Nico Rosberg was the last of the drivers in the 1:33 times, and he seemed to be quite happy with his eighth place on the grid, and said that the car is better suited to this track than it was in Malaysia.
Button popped in a great Q2 drive to make it through to Q3 in the improving Honda, and even managed to out pace Fernando Alonso in the Q3 session.
Suprises that turned up, well there was a few, the Red Bull cars looked to be struggling, especially David Coulthard who did not even make it through the Q1 session, Mark Webber faired a little better but still looked slow in comparison to previous races.
Takuma Sato threw his Super Aguri off the track in the last corner and put it into the wall, not usually an issue but the team are running short on supplies, so lets hope they manage to get the car repaired overnight as Taku is always amusing to watch in the race in a bullish Montoya way.
Should be a great race tomorrow, let’s hope that the BMW of Kubica has a sensible amount of fuel on board and they have not decided to take glory on Saturday over the race.
| Pos | No | Driver | Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | Robert Kubica | BMW | 1:32.893 | 1:31.745 | 1:33.096 |
| 2 | 2 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1:31.937 | 1:31.188 | 1:33.123 |
| 3 | 22 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1:32.750 | 1:31.922 | 1:33.292 |
| 4 | 1 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 1:32.652 | 1:31.933 | 1:33.418 |
| 5 | 23 | Heikki Kovalainen | McLaren-Mercedes | 1:33.057 | 1:31.718 | 1:33.488 |
| 6 | 3 | Nick Heidfeld | BMW | 1:33.137 | 1:31.909 | 1:33.737 |
| 7 | 11 | Jarno Trulli | Toyota | 1:32.493 | 1:32.159 | 1:33.994 |
| 8 | 7 | Nico Rosberg | Williams-Toyota | 1:32.903 | 1:32.185 | 1:34.015 |
| 9 | 16 | Jenson Button | Honda | 1:32.793 | 1:32.362 | 1:35.057 |
| 10 | 5 | Fernando Alonso | Renault | 1:32.947 | 1:32.345 | 1:35.115 |
| 11 | 10 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1:33.194 | 1:32.371 | |
| 12 | 17 | Rubens Barrichello | Honda | 1:32.944 | 1:32.508 | |
| 13 | 12 | Timo Glock | Toyota | 1:32.800 | 1:32.528 | |
| 14 | 6 | Nelsinho Piquet | Renault | 1:32.975 | 1:32.790 | |
| 15 | 14 | Sebastien Bourdais | STR-Ferrari | 1:33.415 | 1:32.915 | |
| 16 | 8 | Kazuki Nakajima | Williams-Toyota | 1:33.386 | 1:32.943 | |
| 17 | 9 | David Coulthard | Red Bull-Renault | 1:33.433 | ||
| 18 | 21 | Giancarlo Fisichella | Force India-Ferrari | 1:33.501 | ||
| 19 | 15 | Sebastian Vettel | STR-Ferrari | 1:33.562 | ||
| 20 | 20 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Ferrari | 1:33.845 | ||
| 21 | 19 | Anthony Davidson | Super Aguri-Honda | 1:34.140 | ||
| 22 | 18 | Takuma Sato | Super Aguri-Honda | 1:35.725 |
