F1 Quali China

The F1 circus moves to Shanghai for the Chinese Grand Prix and in practice both Mclarens were firing on all cylinder, first Jenson, Nico and Lewis and then in the second run they swapped around. Eddie Jordan wasn't there this weekend due to the problems Europe is experiencing with the Volcanic Ash stopping flights in European Air Space.

One has to start asking questions about Michael as he has not matched Nico in either quali or the race in all the races so far. There is talk also about Felipe not retaining his seat for 2011 and that appears strange to me as he is topping the charts at this stage of the season.

DC is now going to drive in the DTM in between his contract for ITV F1 and it will be interesting to see how he can perform in the DTM rocket ships. He will feel strange to have roof for a change after his years in F1. We all wish him best for the races he will run during the 2010 season.

Back to F1 and a very strange event in practice saw the right front upright fail on Sebastian's (Buemi) Toro Rosso and the car almost immediately lost both front wheels. Whilst everything worked out OK for him it must be a concern to have such a catastrophic failure at the speeds of these cars. Norbert Haug (boss of Mercedes) seems quite relaxed about the Mercedes performance so far but accepts they are not there with the car yet.

Off we go into quali 1 in the dry with a track temp of 30 degrees and air temp of 20 degrees. All seems to point to Mclaren being on the pace of the Red Bull's and it should be a close quali session. Felipe was the first to put in a time in a 1.36.997 but that will be blitzed as the quali session unwinds. Lewis seems to have an affinity with Shanghai and we sit with anticipation of his times here and we were not to be disappointed as he slots in a lap .6 quicker with a 1.35.6.Nico is still outpacing Michael early in Q1 as he seems to have become one with the Mercedes.

Early in the session the Red Bull's don't seem to have the raw pace of the Mclaren's but their cars are still running very low to the track in qualifying and Martin commented how do they do that and then run the same spec but on full tanks for the race. The new teams are getting closer to the pace and it must be a huge challenge to match the top teams on a much smaller budget.

So after Q1 we lost Vinantonio, Jarno, Heikki, Timo, Lucas, Karun and Bruno and the big surprise is Vinantanio in his Force India as he should really be up in the top 10 with Adrian. Lewis retained his P1 slot and was never matched by the rest albeit Nico slotted into P2. Virgin are the best of the new teams and a positive step forward. Michael is still .5 secs slower than Nico and he must be very frustrated accepting his background.

Q2 then got underway and the first car out was Vitaly in his rebuilt Renault after his huge off in practice. One other worry is the Mclaren to all of a sudden have a box of neutrals and we will see how that develops for them over the weekend. A mixture of tyres being used as the teams sought the best balance. The Red Bull's don't seem to have it at this stage of the weekend and again Lewis is going even quicker with a first lap of 1.34.928. Michael then slotted into P6 but .7 behind. Fernando is not struggling with engines but he has used 2 already and they are going to have to protect the 6 remaining for the rest of the season.

Nico is still up there in P2 some two tenths behind Lewis but he still has the problem of the box of neutrals and it is becoming a concern. The Red Bull's are just not matching the front runners with Lewis the only driver in the 34's. All seems to be going to plan in the Mclaren garage even accepting his gearbox problem. There is still talk about Lewis's weaving during the race at Malaysia and as always the others always seem to want to beat him up only because he is too fast! It seems incredible that only 13 percent of the lap is on the brakes when looking at the lap.

Jenson could only manage seventh and Michael was only three hundreds of a second in front of Rubens but moved into Q3 but only in tenth place. So we lost Jaime, Rubens, Sebastian (Buemi), Vitaly, Kamui, Nico (Hulkenberg) and Pedro. The top ten are the usual contenders and it should be quite competitive in Q3 but Lewis seems to be out there in front. One has to say the Ferrari's have been very quiet up to now albeit always in the top 10.

So with Lewis sitting in P1 half a second quicker than the rest so it was now time for the last blast into the top ten grid positions. With only 10 minutes in Q3 it is very tight to ensure all goes well. This is set to be the tightest fight of the season for pole. Most teams are going for a 1 lap dash and then change tyres and go for broke. The Red Bull's seem to be glued to the track as they have been all season and it is impressive to watch.

Sebastian then all of a sudden seemed to get it together and was finally in P1 and his first into the 34's apart from Lewis in Q2. On the first run Lewis could only manage fifth with Jenson seventh which seemed strange. So Lewis then changed onto the Green walled, soft tyres and off he launched and as he only did a pit lane tyre change he was fuelled for both runs. It was meteoric then for the last few laps and all of a sudden the Red Bull's came good and for the second time this season they locked out the front row.

Lewis had a bad Q3 and didn't get it together and even dropped behind Jenson for the first time this weekend. Fernando put in a great lap and finished third after a highly competitive, best qualifying of the season. So we finished up with Sebastian (P1), Mark, Fernando, Nico, Jenson, Lewis, Felipe, Robert, Michael and finally Adrian in his Force India again in the top 10. It appears that maybe the Mclaren doesn't work as well on the soft tyres compared with the prime and that will interesting during the race.

Great quali session and we look forward to a great race. It will be good to see Lewis moving through from sixth and he looks forward to a good race and there is much talk about tomorrow being wet and we know from previous races that always makes for a very interesting race.