I'm only a part time viewer of F1 at best, so can someone explain why the qualifying times are as follows? What's going on?
Qualifying times for British GP:
1. Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes one minute 21.049 seconds
2. Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault 1:21.554
3. Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1:21.706
4. Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.835
5. Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:21.873
6. Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault 1:22.029
7. Nelson Piquet (Bra) Renault 1:22.491
8. Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:23.251
9. Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:23.305
10. Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber no time
11. David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault 1:20.174
12. Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota 1:20.274
13. Sebastien Bourdais (Fra) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:20.531
14. Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 1:20.601
15. Kazuki Nakajima (Jap) Williams-Toyota 1:21.112
16. Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Honda 1:21.512
17. Jenson Button (GB) Honda 1:21.631
18. Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota 1:21.668
19. Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India-Ferrari 1:21.786
20. Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India-Ferrari 1:21.885
It's dependent on lots of things. How much fuel the cars take into qualifying, what the conditions are like (it was windy and sporadically rainy yesterday) etc.
Kovalainen drove a beauty, Webber had a low fuel load (16 laps or so) and Hamilton, despite being fastest all weekend had a wobble in his 2nd last qualifying lap so had to make 100% sure he got the car round in one piece in the last one. And Massa had an off and missed the last round of qualifying.
Superb start to the race today. Hamilton was brilliant and Kovalainen's move to hold him off at the 2nd turn was excellent.
Oh hang on, I see what you mean. There are 3 qualifying rounds. You have to be in the top 15 to go into round 2 and top 10 to go into round 3.
The times are lower as in Q3 it was wet and windy. The top drivers were putting in 1.19's etc. for Q1.
I have no idea Guy, as I've never been to/been past Silverstone on a race day. I do however regularly go past Donington. It may only be 3 miles from the M1, but there also happens to be an international airport between the two.
Great race yesterday, they should all be held in the rain I reckon.
I hate to hear it when a circuit is dropped (or considered for being dropped) because of the weather. I'm pretty certain they wanted to drop Ile de Notre Dame for that reason. I much prefer to see drivers having to cope with adverse conditions. After all, F1/FIA would be guilty of inconsistency if they say that they want to take away technological 'driver aids' to make their skill paramount, but then cossett them by protecting them from any sort of meteorological unpleasantness.
(Zandvoort was fair enough, though - you can't have sand dunes drifting onto a track!)
I miss Brands Hatch. :-( I used to love the part where they'd disappear into the trees. However, they don't even use the full circuit for Touring Cars, these days - is it really that dangerous?
From a purely selfish perspective, I wouldn't mind seeing the Grand Prix come to Thruxton. Not going to happen, though.
I'd love to see them bring back the full circuit of Spa, the Nurburgring and Clermont-Ferrand, which was so twisty, drivers were known to retire with car sickness and some even wore open-faced helmets, in case they had to be sick on the move!
Going off-topic almost entirely, whenever I catch the train to London, I have to pass the remains of Brooklands. Even in the 20+ years I've been making that journey, the amount that the track has been allowed to deteriorate is remarkable and a terrible shame. There's no way they could have races on the banked circuit - its top lip almost meets with the rail track at one point. I just think it would have been a nice thing to restore it to its former glory and have a motor racing museum there. Alas, it looks like it's all going to be swallowed by the business park there, now. :-(
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