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With seven different
teams making it onto the top ten places of the grid for
tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix, fans of Formula 1 are
definitely enjoying an exciting start to the season,
leaving aside the dominance of world champion Sebastian
Vettel, who completed a hat-trick of poles this
afternoon at the Shanghai International Circuit.
However, when one is not yet competitive at the highest
level, it is hard to enjoy that excitement. If Fernando
Alonso and Felipe Massa’s fifth and sixth places sound
like the current norm, it does not take into account
that Mark Webber in the other dominant Red Bull had a
bad afternoon and failed to get further than Q1. The
reason the Prancing Horse cars are not therefore fourth
and fifth, is that the Mercedes squad appears to have
upped its game, or finds its car particularly suited to
the Chinese track, as Nico Rosberg qualified fourth.
Almost inevitably Jenson Button and his McLaren
team-mate Lewis Hamilton provided the most effective
opposition to Vettel, the two Englishmen finishing up
second and third on the grid. However, their challenge
cannot be seen as that effective as Button’s best lap
was around seven tenths of a second slower than the
German’s quickest.
Fernando and Felipe got through Q1 comfortably enough in
third and fourth places, but things livened up in Q2
when Petrov’s Renault, stranded in the middle of the
track, brought the red flag out to interrupt the session
with 2”02 remaining. The restart was more like the start
of a race than a qualifying lap, with Felipe battling
his way past Perez to get to the front of the field and
ensure he had a clean lap to secure the route through to
Q3.
Tomorrow, the twenty four competitors will face an
interesting afternoon and 56 laps that are hard to
predict. It would be easy to see Vettel running away
with the race win again, however, at this early point of
the year, the effect of tyre degradation, coupled with
the use of KERS and the moveable rear wing, especially
on Shanghai’s long main straight, means that nothing is
certain. In Malaysia the 150º Italia proved it was on
podium pace only for various incidents preventing it
from becoming a reality. If a top three finish was just
down to the grit and determination of our team and
drivers, it would be a foregone conclusion for tomorrow.
The Chinese Grand Prix should be a thriller, with fights
at the front, in the very closely contested midfield and
with Webber trying to carve his way through from
eighteenth on the grid in the very quick Red Bull.
Stefano Domenicali: “First of all on
behalf of the whole team, I want to express our delight
at the positive progress in the condition of Paolo
Santarsiero, one of our mechanics who fell ill on
Thursday with an aneurism in his head and was
subsequently operated on at the Rui Jin hospital in
Shanghai: I wish to thank the entire medical team who
acted so promptly and efficiently in carrying out the
procedure. Incidents like this make one realise what the
priorities really are in life and puts everything else
into perspective. Having said that, we are here to race
and to try and be the best in our sport but, at the
moment, we are not there. Here we saw gaps similar to
the first two qualifying sessions of the year and we
could not have expected anything different, given that
our car is practically unchanged. We definitely can’t be
happy about it, but we must try to close the gap and do
our utmost in this very difficult period. In Australia
and Malaysia we saw that our race pace is not bad
compared to the others, apart from that of the
championship leader, so we will see what happens here.”
Fernando Alonso: “I had not expected
much more than this from qualifying. Fifth and sixth
places represent the maximum we can aspire to in our
current situation. We already knew all about Red Bull
and McLaren, but here we saw an improvement from
Mercedes, so the situation is now even more difficult.
We are trying to improve our performance: we are a great
team and we know how to react. Yesterday, we tried some
new components, but it is still too early to use them in
a race: we hope to make a significant step forward in
Turkey. I would give the team 10 out of 10 for how they
managed qualifying over these first three races: it is
always very difficult to find the compromise between the
need to take risks and being prudent and we have already
seen mistakes costing some drivers dear in these three
sessions. At the moment we should not be trying anything
clever, instead keeping things simple. I think the
podium is still within our reach. This year there are
more variables, like the tyre degradation and the use of
the moveable rear wing, which come into play during the
race, as we have seen in the first two grands prix. It
could be a bit warmer tomorrow than today, so we will
see if that changes anything, although I don’t expect it
to. Strategy will be very important in determining the
final result.”
Felipe Massa: “It went a little bit
better than in Malaysia, but we are still behind.
Vettel’s performance is not surprising, whereas Webber’s
definitely is. The McLarens are also quicker than us and
Mercedes has improved and will be a very tough
competitor tomorrow in the race. In Q2 after the red
flag, I went out immediately to try and be first out and
get a clear track. Perez was ahead of me but I passed
him on the out lap and it was a good thing, because that
meant I got a clean lap and improved my time. I really
hope we will see a repeat of the Malaysian situation
with a performance jump from qualifying to the race: if
that was the case, then a podium might not be out of
reach. The track has improved a lot compared to
yesterday: there is more grip and the cars slide less,
thus using the tyres less and that will be a factor to
take into consideration when working out the ideal
strategy.”
Pat Fry: “Going into qualifying I would
have said that the third row was the best we could
aspire to because there are at least two cars that so
far have proved to be quicker than ours. Today we saw
that the Mercedes has also made a step forward and,
honestly, we did not have sufficient pace to get ahead
of it and we made the most of the opportunity that
presented itself with Webber being eliminated in Q1.
With both Felipe and Fernando we used the same programme
in terms of tyre management and the series of runs: with
our current level of performance we have to maintain a
realistic and modest approach because we have seen that
taking risks does not pay off. Tomorrow’s race will be
very long and difficult and we will try to make the most
of every opportunity.”
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