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Fernando
Alonso will start today’s British Grand Prix, the ninth
round of the World Championship, from pole position.
Felipe Massa is on the inside of Row 3 in fifth place.
Those two simple sentences relate the facts behind
Scuderia Ferrari’s first pole of the season and its best
overall qualifying performance, taking both cars into
consideration. However, they do not begin to tell the
story of a Silverstone Saturday afternoon that included
nail-biting times for the Prancing Horse personnel.
As expected, yesterday morning’s dry final hour of free
practice was just a diversion, an interlude in a weekend
where the top story has been the weather, both because
of its effect on the on-track action and the chaos it
has caused, mainly for the spectators, who nevertheless
are here in their tens of thousands as usual. So, it was
hardly surprising when a light drizzle began to fall in
the run up to the start of Q1. That first part of the
proceedings saw a track damp enough to require
Intermediates, at the end of which Fernando was fifth
and Felipe thirteenth. When it was time for Q2, the rain
had intensified and the Scuderia had its first lucky
break, when Fernando survived a high speed spin without
hitting anything and was able to continue to return to
the pits. However, both men were well outside the Q3
zone when the session was red flagged as the conditions
had become too dangerous to continue. Thus began a long
and tense wait which lasted over an hour. After the
restart, the Ferrari men kept their cool and both made
it through to Q3, where, as Fernando said, it was all
about being in the right place at the right time, on the
right tyres. The Spaniard’s last lap evidently fitted
these criteria as it saw him take pole position.
Joining him on the front row today will be Mark Webber
for Red Bull, while the second row features the German
duo of Michael Schumacher, third for Mercedes and
Sebastian Vettel fourth in the other Red Bull. Felipe
has his former team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen in the Lotus,
on his outside on Row 3. Predictions for today’s 52 laps
of this famous airfield are pointless as the rain is
expected to be on hand once again. However, what one can
say is that the F2012 evidently performs well on a wet
track and, as far as Fernando is concerned, assuming he
can get off the line ahead of the rest, he will have the
great advantage of good visibility on this high speed
track.
Stefano Domenicali: “The points are
only given out on Sunday and we always keep that in
mind…Obviously, we are happy today because it’s been a
long time, too long, that we have not had one of our
drivers on pole position, but we must not get carried
away now, quite the contrary. We must concentrate even
more on our work because, once again, this afternoon, we
saw how things can change literally from one minute to
the next. Fernando was extraordinary and Felipe also did
a great job: it’s our best qualifying of the year and we
must try and make the most of it in tomorrow’s race. The
weather forecast is rather uncertain, so we will have to
be on high alert, ready to react to the slightest
change. So many times this year, we have seen that grid
positions have not proved decisive when it comes to the
final result: let’s hope that, tomorrow at least, it
will play an important role.”
Fernando Alonso: “First of all I want
to dedicate this pole to Maria de Villota, who is going
through a particularly difficult time. We are all
feeling sad these days and our thoughts are with her and
her family. Pole was a surprise, because in conditions
like these, you never know what can happen. This
morning, in the dry, the car was very good, but in the
wet it could all be different, even if the F2012 has
shown that’s it’s not bad in the rain, if one thinks of
Malaysia and the Mugello test. This afternoon, one had
to be in the right place at the right time on the right
tyres and, to succeed in that, you also needed a bit of
luck. For once it came our way, as with the spin at the
start of Q2 and when I managed to get through into Q3 by
a hair’s breadth after the interruption: in the end, I
had a car ahead of me and the visibility was really poor
and then there were yellow flags at the last corner, but
in the end I managed to get through to the next stage.
Today’s pole is important, even if we know it came to us
in unusual conditions. We still need to get one in the
dry to be able to say we have closed the gap to the
best. I’m hoping for a boring race tomorrow, given that
for once I’m starting in front of everyone.”
Felipe Massa: “It’s a nice result for
the team, mainly because, when the red flag came out,
both myself and Fernando were out of Q3. We did a good
job at the restart in the last few laps of Q2 and then,
in Q3 we were always in the fight for pole position, but
I was losing time right at the very last corner, as I
was locking the rear wheels. All the same, I am pleased
with fifth place. I think I will be competitive
tomorrow, especially as the car is going well on this
type of track. From Canada onwards, the F2012 has
improved a lot and the results are clear to see. I think
that the stoppage in Q2 was the right decision, even if
it could have maybe come a bit sooner: it was incredible
how much aquaplaning there was on the main straight at
that time. Then Race Control did a great job in making
sure the track was in a practicable condition, which
meant the spectators were able to see a spectacle that
must have lived up to their enthusiasm. For we drivers,
the break was boring, but for everyone in the
grandstands, it was even worse, given how hard the rain
was falling!”
Pat Fry: “It was a long and tense
session. The final outcome is really great because we
have not been on pole for a long time, but there was a
long period, after the red flag, during which we feared
the worse. It goes to show how, especially in such an
evenly matched season as this one, in Formula 1 things
can change very quickly. Both our drivers did a great
job in very difficult driving conditions. It’s pointless
discussing if we managed things as well as we could: we
will calmly analyse the evolution of the three sessions
to see where we need to improve. However, now we must
only think about tomorrow’s race, which looks like being
very unpredictable from every point of view, starting
with the weather. This morning, in the dry, we saw that
the F2012 is reasonably competitive, but also that the
opposition is very strong. We will try and do our best,
as usual. Clearly, when defining the strategies and how
they will evolve during the race, the weather will play
a key role.”
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