F1 Quali Melbourne

Well, the first bit of news came on Friday off the track as Lewis had an altercation with Australian police in his road car. Whilst the worlds press made a big thing about it I think it is rather amusing and I am sure the police loved every minute of it.

It also appears Lewis has parted his managaer and father Anthony Hamilton and according to the press it was Lewis who initiated it. I am certain we will hear more about this in the near future.

Back to quali and with cloudy skies it was all go for hopefully a better weekend showing than last time out in Bahrain. All the prospects were good for a better race weekend on a shorter track than Bahrain and on practice form it seems tighter as well.

Q1: None of the teams complained about traffic in Q1 but it looked, to say the least hairy at times. One can only say the Red Bull's are on fire and Sebastian was electric throughout quali. He was closely followed by Nico, Jenson, Lewis, Fernando, Mark, Michael, a struggling Felipe, Adrian again up there and closing out the top 10 came Robert in his Renault.

It is an awful thing to have to say but we lost the 3 new teams again and the only real surprise was the loss of Vitaly Petrov in the Renault but he was 2 seconds up the road from the new teams in a 26.5. So out went Lotus with Heikki and Jarno but both their cars at least finished in Bahrain, Virgin with Timo and di Grassi and both the HRT cars where both Senna and Karun are struggling big time.

Into Q2 where again we were to lose 7 cars and a couple of surprises in store. Sebastian & Mark were still out front followed by Fernando, Jenson, Nico (still in front of Michael), Michael, Felipe, Adrian still up there in the Force India doing a sterling job, Robert keeping the Renault up there and Rubens consistent again.

Then came a surprise and the first major scalp was Lewis himself who evidently hadn't enough fuel to complete the lap which would have taken him into the top 10. He seemed to struggle throughout Q2 and he was out, finishing in 11th. This is not as good a position as 2009 as there is no fuel strategy advantage anymore only choice of tyres.

After Lewis we lost Sebastian (Buemi), Nico (Hulkenberg), Vitantonio, Pedro, Kamui and finally Jamie. So only 1 of the Cosworth engined cars made Q1 and again it was in the hands of Rubens in his 1oth placed Williams.

Q1: So out came the big guns for Q1 with the teams looking ever upward wondering whether rain would spoil the party. The heli had some rain spots on the lens but that didn't affect quali. From the off it was Vettel setting the pace and the first to register a lap under 1.24. His stunning 1.23.9 was never to be headed even accepting Mark had the local, home turf advantage with the Aussie crown egging him on. His 24 dead kept him in second place giving us a Red Bull front row.

Fernando was there or thereabouts again following his success in Bahrain and made up row 2 in front of Jenson who obviously out performed Lewis in his lowly 11th.

Row 3 saw Felipe finally getting his act together albeit .8 secs off Fernando's pace and he was joined by Nico again out gunning Michael. Row 4 saw Michael in front of his old Ferrari partner Rubens who was showing Williams are on the pace.

Row 5 and making the top 10 was Robert who is still getting to grips with the Renault and once he does I think he will move up further and rounding out the top 10 was Adrian again showing the Force India is a top class team.

So the race looks like being a different prospect to Bahrain and has the prospect of being closer with hopefully a little more overtaking particularly with Lewis in 11th who must surely have to stamp his mark from the off.

We still have 6 seconds between pole and the 24th HRT car which could spell problems in the race due to the arrival speed of the cars behind the slowest. So we have 24 cars thundering around Albert Park's 5.3 kms circuit for 58 laps in what will hopefully be a dry race.

The lap record is held by Michael in 1.24.1 and surely that must be under threat from Vettel in particular with others not far away. We have certainly 8 cars capable of winning the race and they were all covered by less than 1 second in quali even accepting Lewis down in 11th.

Lets hope for a great grand prix tomorrow.