Qualy: Hamilton signals his intent

Saturday 15th March 2008

Lewis Hamilton got his title campaign off to a great start in Australia on Saturday, clinching pole position ahead of BMW's Robert Kubica.

With the new qualifying format reduced to just ten minutes, with no fuel burn-off, Hamilton crossed the line with a 1:26.714 to beat Kubica by just 0.155s.

Heikki Kovalainen will start his first race as a McLaren driver from row two on the grid after he posted the third fastest time ahead of Ferrari's Felipe Massa.

Meanwhile there was disappointment for Massa's team-mate, reigning Champion Kimi Raikkonen, who will start 16th on grid come Sunday afternoon.

The Finn suffered a mechanical failure in the final moments of Q1, stopping his car tantalisingly shot of the pitlane.

Weather Conditions
Sunny, dry, with an ambient temperature of 23C, track temperature of 38C

Qualifying 1
The key difference in qualifying this year is the fact that the Q1 session has been lengthened to 20 minutes and Q3 reduced to 10 minutes.

Sebastien Bourdais started the new season off with a very cautious first lap of 1:30.250. In the opening phase of the race a lot of drivers ran onto the grass, with Timo Glock looking the lariest of them all. Toyota had been forced to change a gearbox after morning practice but nobody was quite sure whether he would take a five-place grid demotion because of it.

Giancarlo Fisichella reduced the pole time to 1:28.131, while Bourdais kept on running to take it back with a 1:27.446.

With 20 minutes to play with, there was a whole "first phase" of drivers taking to the track - Bourdais, Vettel, Fisichella, Glock, Nakajima, Sutil, Sato, Davidson (almost the de facto back of the grid) had the track to themselves for three or four laps before the serious runners came out.

Jarno Trulli then reduced pole to 1:27.77 and Nico Rosberg reduced it furtherto 1:26.886.

Heikki Kovalainen in his debut McLaren qualifying performance showed that he meant business (and his Melbourne woes of 2007 were gone) with a P1 of 1:25.664. Lewis Hamilton would have beaten him, but came up to a slower runner in the final two turns and had a lurid, oversteery moment which lost him almost a second. Significantly Robert Kubica went P2 for BMW.

With three minutes left to run, the order at the back was:
13. Barrichello
14. Trulli
15. Coulthard
16. Bourdais
17. Button
18. Fisichella
19. Sutil
20. Piquet
21. Sato
22. Davidson

Ferrari had kept their nerve the longest, sending out Raikkonen and Massa last of all. However as the slowest runners geared up for their final laps, Kimi Raikkonen was crawling towards the pitlane having comfortably qualified for Q2.

As the Ferrari crept into the pitlane it got slower and slower. It came to rest outside the limit of the pitlane, on a part still deemed to be part of the race track. He was out. The team had suffered fuel pressure regulator problems on Friday and this was a recurrence at the worst possible time.

Meanwhile back on the circuit David Coulthard jumped to P6, while Adrian Sutil spun his Force-India in the final sector. Barrichello took P6 off Coulthard and Button, too, managed to make himself safe with the P11 time.

Nelson Piquet junior looked terribly slow and his time 1.6 seconds slower than Fernando Alonso wasn't even good enough to beat Sato's Super Aguri. Alonso was only 14th but Jarno Trulli jumped up to P9 to make it into Q2.

As the dust settled, the losers were:
17. Fisichella
18. Bourdais
19. Sutil
20. Sato
21. Piquet
22. Davidson

Glock squeaked in in 16th place despite his excursions and homeboy Mark Webber was perilously close to the drop in 15th place. However Raikkonen was the biggest casualty of the session and Nelson Piquet junior had a qualifying debut to forget.

At the end of the session there was just a second separating 4th and 16th places!

Qualifying 2
Sebastian Vettel was the first to set a time in Q2 taking P1 with a 1:26.291, Coulthard lowered it to 1:26.181.

As everyone (bar the BMWs) took to the track, cameras caught a puff of carbon dust exploding from the front right of Mark Webber's Red Bull as he was sent skeetering off into the gravel. The local boy was out due to a car failure and the session was red-flagged to recover his car with 8 minutes 37 seconds of the session left to run. (And only two times on the timesheet).

Felipe Massa was first out when the session resumed and lowered the pole to 1:25.691. More significantly, Robert Kubica was able to go 0.3 quicker and took pole to 1:25.362.

Would we get a Pole on pole? Lewis Hamilton had other ideas and took the P1 time with a 1:25.187. With three minutes remaining the dropzone was:
8. Button
9. Vettel
10. Barrichello
11. Alonso
12. Webber (stopped)
13. Trulli
14. Glock
15. Nakajima
16. Raikkonen (not running)

Almost all the drivers improved their times as they crossed the line on their final laps. Rubens Barrichello, who finished his lap early, jumped to P7 and Button P10. But then Vettel stuck his Toro Rosso in P6, Coulthard went P8 leaving both Toyotas in the top 10, but Alonso outside of it. So out went:
11. Barrichello
12. Alonso
13. Button
14. Nakajima
15. Webber
16. Raikkonen

Though Fernando Alonso was the major casualty of the session, Mark Webber would have been hoping to get into the Top 10 at his home GP. Kazuki Nakajima also qualified seven places below team-mate Nico Rosberg (up in P7).

Despite being eliminated from Q1 the Honda drivers were celebrating as though they'd taken the front row - P11 and P13 is clearly a lot better than they thought they were going to get. Button admited that he should have got inside the top ten and that two key mistakes lost him two-tenths of a second. However star of the session - if not the whole of qualifying - was Vettel in a mighty P6.

Qualifying 3
Last season it was a race to the end of the pitlane to queue up and get out on track first when the lights went green. This was in order to get the maximum fuel credit back. This season the burn-off phase is gone and drivers have to race with the fuel they have on board. And hence no rush to get on the track.

In fact with nine minutes of the session remaining only Vettel was out on the circuit. Nico Rosberg was the first to set a pole lap, though, and established the benchmark at 1:29.144, Nick Heidfeld lowered it to 1:27.821 and Kovalainen nipped inside to 1:27.584.

Felipe Massa, left as Ferrari's sole representative, beat Kovalainen's time with a 1:27.178. It was not to last long, though, as Lewis Hamilton hammered out a 1:27.092.

Robert Kubica, it appeared, was going to have one serious go at pole. And when it came he was fast. He set two purple (fastest) sectors before running wide and putting four wheels on the grass at the fast chicane. It hardly slowed him, because he set the provisional pole time of 1:26.869.

Hamilton, Kovalainen and Massa were going to have to run very quickly to beat him. First off Kovalainen jumped into P3 ahead of Felipe Massa. Massa couldn't improve, so it was all down to Lewis Hamilton. Lewis, on a very slow outlap, set two purple sectors and a PB in his final sector and stopped the clock at 1:26.714. It was an excellent lap and a great pole to start off the season. However he was just 0.155 quicker than Kubica who must have lost more than that with his rallycross moment.

The big news of the session, though, was Ferrari's failure and BMW's resurgence. Kubica's time was no light fuel load bid for glory, (though he'll probably stop earlier tomorrow) , the team are genuinely close to McLaren and Ferrari.

With such difficult customers in front of him as Webber and Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen will have his work cut out to make rapid progress in the race tomorrow. A fascinating start to the season.

Frank Hopkinson

Times
01. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:26.714
02. Kubica BMW Sauber 1:26.869
03. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.079
04. Massa Ferrari 1:27.178
05. Heidfeld BMW Sauber 1:27.236
06. Trulli Toyota 1:28.527
07. Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:28.687
08. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:29.041
09. Glock Toyota 1:29.593
10. Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari No time
11. Barrichello Honda 1:26.173
12. Alonso Renault 1:26.188
13. Button Honda 1:26.259
14. Nakajima Williams-Toyota 1:26.413
15. Webber Red Bull-Renault No times
16. Raikkonen Ferrari No time
17. Fisichella Force India-Ferrari 1:27.207
18. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:27.446
19. Sutil Force India-Ferrari 1:27.859
20. Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:28.208
21. Piquet Renault 1:28.330
22. Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 1:29.059