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Red Bull Dominate Front Row in Qualifying
27/3/10
The starting grid for Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix was decided at around 6am this morning. Both Red Bull’s car made it onto the front row thanks to poleman Sebastian Vettel and local hero Mark Webber. The German set the fastest time of the weekend on his first runs in Q3, with 1m 23.919s. Webber’s best was 1m 24.035s.
Fernando Alonso edged the Ferrari a lot closer than they had been in Bahrain with the third fastest time of 1m 24.111s, he was followed by Jenson Button, who posted the second-run best of 1m 24.675s for McLaren.
Felipe Massa challenged that for Ferrari on his second run, but came up short with 1m 24.837s for fifth. Nico Rosberg once again out qualified his Mercedes team mate Michael Schumacher, with 1m 24.884s, but the multiple champion wasn’t far off with 1m 24.927s, the closest he’s been thus far!
Rubens Barrichello put Williams eighth in the line-up with 1m 25.217s ahead of Robert Kubica for Renault with 1m 25.372s, while the faster Force India of Adrian Sutil completed the top 10 with 1m 26.036s.
Much to the amazement of everyone Lewis Hamilton failed to get through to Q3. The former champion’s McLaren was visibly struggling when he lapped it in 1m 28.586s on his first outing, although he redeemed himself a little by coming out towards the end with a 1m 25.184s, but missed out on Q3 by 0.064s.
Behind the 2008 world champion, the times were incredibly close. Sebastien Buemi was 12th for Toro Rosso with 1m 25.638s ahead of Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi on 1m 25.743s, BMW Sauber’s Pedro de la Rosa on 1m 25.747s, Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg on 1m 25.748s and Kamui Kobayashi, who had a great catch as his BMW Sauber oversteered viciously through the final turn, on 1m 25.777s. Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari was 17th on 1m 26.089s.
Those that went out during the first session included Renault’s Vitaly Petrov, whose 1m 26.471s put him 17th. Once again Heikki Kovalainen led the new teams, with 1m 28.797s for Lotus. Team mate Jarno Trulli backed him with 1m 29.111s, just ahead of Virgin’s Timo Glock on 1m 29.592s and his team mate Lucas Di Grassi on 1m 30.185s. Both HRTs kept running and weren’t far off Virgin’s pace, with Bruno Senna taking 23rd ahead of Karun Chandhok, 1m 30.526s to 1m 30.613s.
