Italian Grand Prix Qualifying

Boring. A word that would accurately sum up qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix as Red Bull’s dominance killed any excitement surrounding the race weekend stone dead. The pace of the Red Bull had looked ominous throughout all three free practice sessions and come qualifying their threat was well and truly confirmed. Once again, the first part of qualifying brought about no real twists or turns and the usual candidates bowed out. Giedo Van Der Garde showed his potential though, out qualifying his teammate and both Marussias to position himself in nineteenth, an insignificant performance in the eyes of many certainly but a huge stepping stone for the Dutchman to secure a drive for next season. Elsewhere, Valtteri Bottas was rather disappointing qualifying only eighteenth and succumbing to his teammate Pastor Maldonado who made it into the second qualifying session. Indeed, Sir Frank Williams looked dejected by Bottas’s performance, a driver who he has placed much faith in. Since his impressive third on the grid at the Canadian Grand Prix, Bottas has faded into Formula One obscurity in recent races and must surely be pushing for a decent race result tomorrow to prove to the team that he is a solid asset. A driver who may not find himself in Formula One next season, is Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez. He failed to make it into the second part of qualifying for the seventh consecutive occasion and he has been seemingly absent all season. Any Formula One fan would be hard pushed to notice him across the course of a race weekend and the clock is ticking on his career one senses.

Force India’s fortunes have drastically changed since Pirelli brought in different compound tyres and more concrete rules for the use of their tyres. Force India were a team who benefitted from switching the front tyres with the rear tyres on each side of the car depending on the tyre wear severity of each circuit. Pirelli outlawed this after the fiasco at Silverstone where no less than four cars from four different teams suffered horrific tyre laminations and consequent failures. Straight-line speed has usually been a strength of Force India but their tyre troubles bubbled to the surface once again and they struggled to make it out of the first qualifying session. After such a poor initial performance it was inevitable that they would find themselves in the lower echelons of the qualifying two session. Indeed they did, as Adrian Sutil and Paul Di Resta qualified fourteenth and sixteenth respectively. Having looked fairly formidable in free practice sessions, Lotus had an absolutely dire qualifying. Romain Grosjean was visibly struggling with his brake bias as he missed the first chicane consistently, ruining various fast lap attempts. The difficulties he was experiencing with setup clearly affected his overall performance as he could only manage thirteenth on the grid, a result Eric Boullier will be incredibly disappointed in. If Grosjean missing out on the final qualifying session upset Boullier, what he saw next won’t have raised his spirits in the least as Kimi Raikkonen was pushed down to eleventh and missed out on final qualifying by the narrowest of margins. Many will speculate that speculation surrounding Raikkonen’s future at Lotus, with a rumoured return to Ferrari on the cards, may have distracted him from his purpose this weekend. However, someone as experienced, calm and talented as Raikkonen would never give time to such rumours. Nevertheless, Lotus will look to run long into the race tomorrow on the prime tyre and utilise the superlative race pace of their car.

The headline of the day perhaps belonged to Lewis Hamilton as, after four consecutive pole positions, he failed to make it into the final part of qualifying. Throughout the second session, Hamilton was visibly struggling to get sufficient heat into his tyres and he was even weaving into the parabolica to desperately bring the tyres into the performance zone. As Hamilton entered the chicane leading onto the back straight on a fast lap, he was visibly held up by the Force India of Adrian Sutil and was forced to abandon his lap. Evidently, Hamilton attempted to back off to gain himself some breathing space in order to launch himself into one last attempt at a banker lap. However Sutil, who was not on a fast lap when he initially halted Hamilton either had the same idea or decided Hamilton wasn’t going to get any space for his final lap leaving Hamilton in the impossible situation of needing to cross the line before the chequered flag but also needing sufficient space so as not to be held up on his lap by traffic. At the start of his make or break lap, Hamilton looked to have sufficient space between himself and Sutil. After the first chicane however, Sutil inexplicably slowed down and blocked Hamilton again to make sure the 2008 World Champion had no chance of making the final qualifying session. Obviously, Hamilton and Sutil have a turbulent history. Having been best friends in the past, they fell out when Hamilton refused to act as a character witness after Sutil was accused of GBH, which he was consequently convicted of. For Sutil to bring such a spat onto the track is thoroughly unprofessional and a penalty is certainly required. What’s more, this isn’t the first time this season that Sutil has purposely blocked Hamilton. The first time, he dismissed it as a race incident but it was clear to see the extent of his malice and spite. Ideally, Sutil will be given at least a five-place grid drop for such petulance. In a post session interview Hamilton was uncharacteristically calm in the face of searching questions but his bitter tone conveyed a definite begrudging against his former best friend.

The final session brought about a few surprises but was a rather dull affair. Mclaren showed that any improvement in performance across the past few races had deserted them once again as Button could only manage ninth on the grid and Perez came home in eighth. The consistent underperformance of the Mclaren is heaping more and more pressure upon Martin Whitmarsh as technical director and I would predict an intense struggle for Whitmarsh to maintain his position next season or even to the end of this season. The Toro Rossos exhibited decent pace with Jean-Eric Vergne making the cut but only managing tenth and Daniel Ricciardo, the man taking Mark Webber’s coveted Red Bull seat at the end of the season, placing in an impressive seventh. Ferrari were hoping for at least the second row of the grid in front of their fanatic Tifosi fans. From the outset of the first qualifying session, they were attempting to gain an advantage by having Massa create a slipstream for Alonso down the straights. In the final qualifying session, Felipe Massa seemed to have too much pace for Alonso to live with and he was nowhere near close enough to his teammate down the straight to gain an advantage. Consequently, Massa managed to qualify ahead of his much-favoured teammate, sealing fourth on the grid with Alonso just behind in fifth. A result that will anger Ferrari president Luca Di Montezemelo, as a strong home race performance from Ferrari is always a must. Both Ferrari drivers did however manage to beat Nico Rosberg of Mercedes into an underwhelming sixth on the grid. Rosberg has seemed incapable of matching him teammates performances as of late even though he has two superb race victories under his belt this season. Many will wish and expect to see a rise in his form in the near future.

The qualifying performance of the day belonged to Nico Hülkenberg. A driver I have touted before as possibly one of the most unappreciated talented young drivers in the sport has once again exhibited to the big teams why he credits a strong drive next season. One must consider that his teammate qualified in seventeenth and the car’s performance is utterly dreadful. For a talented driver to outperform his car to such an extent is unheard of in the modern era and the big teams will come calling for Hülkenberg sooner rather than later. Ultimately, the day belonged to Sebastian Vettel. He secured the fortieth pole of his career, whilst Mark Webber’s second position marked Red Bull’s eighteenth front row lockout in the team’s short history. At this point, it is easy to conclude that the season is over. Barring a car failure tomorrow it is practically impossible to conceive that Vettel will not surge to race victory. If he does win tomorrow and Alonso and Hamilton slump to poor points tallies the Championship will undoubtedly be over. For Formula One fans the tediously boring races will only continue in the wake of Vettel’s Red Bull. However, this is certainly a good time for one to be a Sebastian Vettel fan. Not that he has many.

Qualifying Result:

1^st            Sebastian Vettel

2^nd           Mark Webber

3^rd           Nico Hülkenberg

4^th           Felipe Massa

5^th           Fernando Alonso

6^th           Nico Rosberg

7^th           Daniel Ricciardo

8^th           Sergio Perez

9^th           Jenson Button

10^th        Jean-Eric Vergne

11^th        Kimi Raikkonen

12^th        Lewis Hamilton

13^th        Romain Grosjean

14^th        Adrian Sutil

15^th        Pastor Maldonado

16^th        Paul Di Resta

17^th        Esteban Gutierrez

18^th        Valtteri Bottas

19^th        Giedo Van Der Garde

20^th        Charles Pic

21^st        Jules Bianchi

22^nd       Max Chilton