Nico Rosberg achieved his third pole position following a brilliant lap at the Circuit de Catalunya. His Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton lines up second after being quickest in Q1 and Q2.
This was Mercedes team’s third consecutive pole position despite showing little of their one-lap pace during the three practice sessions.
And yet come the qualifying hour, the speed of the Silver Arrows reveals the true performance against their rivals.
Rosberg repeated his Bahrain pole after producing two great laps in the top ten shootout.
His initial one minute, 20.8 seconds benchmark proved unbeatable, but the German was able to improve this with a time of one minute, 20.718 seconds to secure the front row spot.
Lewis Hamilton had to settle for second place, just 0.254 seconds adrift.
As for the Formula 1 championship leader Sebastian Vettel, the Red Bull driver will lines up third. Ahead of Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus and the home crowd favourite Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
Alonso’s team-mate Felipe Massa mounted a strong challenge for pole position only to lose crucial time in the final sector and ended up in sixth position.
Unfortunately, the Brazilian was deemed to have impeded Mark Webber’s Red Bull in Q2 and will drop three places on the grid.
Hamilton had earlier starred in a thrilling end to Q2, throwing in a last-gasp lap that jumped him from a worrying P13 to a comfortable first, six tenths clear of the pack.
Sergio Perez also produced an eleventh-hour surge in Q2, getting up to seventh and then qualifying ninth in Q3. His McLaren team-mate Jenson Button was unable to match that. Was six tenths slower and will start in a disappointing P14.
Toro Rosso had looked promising in practice and both Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne had a realistic shot at Q3. Both were holding onto a top ten spot, before being narrowly squeezed out by others.
They will share row six, ahead of Adrian Sutil, who could not join team-mate Paul di Resta in the pole position shootout. The Scot took tenth place.
Going into the final seconds of Q2, both Saubers had made it into Q3. But in the subsequent flurry of improvements, Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Gutierrez tumbled down to row eight.
The race stewards would later demote the Mexican further down the grid after blocking Kimi Raikkonen in Q1.
As for Williams, who started the race on pole and later won the Spanish Grand Prix last year. The new upgrades failed to improve the car’s overall speed meaning neither drivers got beyond Q1.
The 2012 winner, Pastor Maldonado will start the race in P18 (accused of blocking by Button) while team-mate Valtteri Bottas was just be one position ahead.
The back of the grid battle stepped up a gear with a very close tussle between Caterham and Marussia.
Giedo van der Garde finally emerged on top for Caterham, edging out Marussia’s Jules Bianchi by just 0.052 seconds.
Max Chilton and Charles Pic were a few tenths behind their respectable team-mates.
So a fantastic performance by Mercedes. But can the team win from the front? Tyre degradation will play a part in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix and yet if Mercedes can continue their impressive qualifying pace into the race, then we could see a Silver Arrows taking the chequered flag first.
Qualifying positions for the Spanish Grand Prix:
1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m20.718s
2. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m20.972s
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m21.054s
4. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m21.177s
5. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m21.218s
6. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m21.308s
7. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m21.570s
8. Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes 1m22.069s
9. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m21.219s*
10. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m22.233s
11. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m22.127s
12. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m22.166s
13. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m22.346s
14. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m23.166s
15. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1m22.389s
16. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1m23.260s
17. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m23.318s
18. Giedo van der Garde Caterham-Renault 1m24.661s
19. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m22.793s*
20. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Cosworth 1m24.713s
21. Max Chilton Marussia-Cosworth 1m24.996s
22. Charles Pic Caterham-Renault 1m25.070s
107 per cent time: 1m27.448s
*Three-place grid penalty for impended
After securing his third pole position, Nico Rosberg is feeling cautious over race pace despite an impressive qualifying performance at the Circuit de Catalunya. Autosport.com has the story.
Spanish Grand Prix poleman Nico Rosberg has voiced a word of caution despite leading a Mercedes one-two in qualifying at Barcelona.
Rosberg, who outpaced team-mate Lewis Hamilton for his third career Formula 1 pole, said that the harsh lesson he suffered when he fell from pole to ninth place in Bahrain meant that Mercedes would go into Sunday’s race with a wary eye on tyre degradation.
“It has just been working really well all weekend, we’ve optimised everything,” he said before adding, “After what we saw in Bahrain it is nice, but we cannot be over confident when we’re thinking about the race result.
“We’re surprised to be that quick, but it was a good qualifying and a good lap in the end, so I’m really, really happy with that.
“It’s a good boost for the team, the front row is fantastic but of course we have to be a bit cautious after Bahrain.”
Rosberg is confident that his team has made progress in terms of its tyre management, but is unsure if it will be enough to challenge for victory.
“The team has been working really hard to be even better, understanding how to get the most out of these tyres,” he said.
“We were a bit behind in Bahrain, and we come here and there are issues again, this time it is more degrading of the tyre, so here catching up and making the most of the situation, we have improved.
“This morning was better so I am a little bit more confident.
“Still tomorrow is going to be a challenge.”
Lining up behind his Mercedes team-mate is Lewis Hamilton. Although the 2008 world champion has admitted he was feeling ‘a bit lost’ on setting up his car. Autosport.com has the details.
Lewis Hamilton admitted he was “a bit lost” with his Mercedes set-up heading into Spanish Grand Prix qualifying, despite ending up on the front row.
The 2008 world champion appeared to be in danger of Q2 elimination until he surged from 13th to first in the segment with his last lap.
Hamilton went on to qualify second, 0.254 seconds down on pole-winning team-mate Nico Rosberg.
“I haven’t had the best of weekends up until now,” said Hamilton.
“This is still great for us today to be one-two on the grid but I have been struggling all weekend.
“The long runs were pretty poor, but on one-lap pace the car doesn’t seem to be too bad.
“I seemed a bit lost, not knowing what to change and where to go, so I didn’t make changes in practice three and into qualifying, I didn’t make any changes. I wasn’t 100 per cent comfortable.”
Rosberg warned that maintaining Mercedes’ pace over a race distance would be tough, and Hamilton agreed that victory did not seem realistic.
“We will do the best job we can from the start, but more of a concern is looking after the tyres,” he said.
“I love that we are going to try and get into Turn 1 first, that will be really good for the team.
“We have to improve our race pace. We have very good qualifying pace. I hope in the future we will get that win.”
He also denied being disappointed by being overshadowed by his team-mate for the second qualifying session in a row.
“Sometimes you get beaten, sometimes you go ahead – that is the name of the game,” Hamilton said.
“At the end of the day he is quicker today and I just have to work harder – simple.”
Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel was feeling quite content despite missing out on pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix. The championship leader will start third on the grid. Autosport.com has the news story.
Formula 1 championship leader Sebastian Vettel said he was content with third position on the grid for Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona.
Red Bull’s three-time world champion qualified 0.336 seconds behind poleman Nico Rosberg, but is the first non-Mercedes on the grid and starts ahead of nearest points rival, Kimi Raikkonen.
“I am quite happy to be honest,” said Vettel. “Yesterday and this morning I was really happy, and I think we improved the car.”
Vettel believes that he is in good shape, tyre-wise, going into Sunday’s race.
“We took a different approach to the majority of people, using option tyres only. Whether that helps us tomorrow we have to wait and see. It will be a long race, it will be about tyre degradation.
“Now, with the conditions helping a little, it is a tough challenge, the tyres don’t last as long as we would like.”
Although Mercedes drivers Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton voiced pessimism about their race chances, Vettel does not think the silver cars ahead will be too easy to beat or that Lotus and Ferrari are out of contention.
“Mercedes are in front of us right now, and to be honest they had some long runs and didn’t look too bad,” said Vettel.
“On the long runs yesterday both Ferrari and Lotus were pretty competitive, so we can expect them to be very strong in the race.”
McLaren’s Jenson Button has commented that the new updates on the MP4-28 are nowhere near good enough after qualifying down in a disappointing P14. Autosport.com has the details.
Jenson Button admitted McLaren’s upgrades are “nowhere near enough” to get the team back towards the front after only qualifying 14th for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Although McLaren and Button had played down expectations for the developments introduced at Barcelona, the hope had been that the revised car would at least be a comfortable Q3 qualifier.
Yet while Sergio Perez got one McLaren into the top 10 in ninth, Button was left back on row seven. He felt a tyre pressure error had caused his woes.
“The tyre pressures were massively high, so I don’t know if something was wrong or if they were set wrong, but we’re looking into it now,” Button said.
He said the upgrades had been beneficial, but not sufficiently.
“They’re making a little bit of a difference but nowhere near enough to really challenge up the front,” Button said, “and everyone has got new parts so it makes it very tricky for us to catch up.”
The Briton took some solace from Perez’s performance.
“The good thing is the car with Sergio in it has shown we have made some progress, which is what we need and we need to build upon that,” said Button.
But Perez was far from happy despite reaching Q3.
“To be in Q3 with a difficult car makes me feel OK,” he said.
“As a driver in a winning team like McLaren you want to be at the front. But in the end you have to be happy when you maximise everything.”
Home crowd favourite Fernando Alonso believes a certain win is possible despite qualifying in fifth position for the Spanish Grand Prix. Autosport.com has the details.
Fernando Alonso described Ferrari’s qualifying deficit at Barcelona as “no surprise” but is certain he can fight for victory in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.
Alonso has yet to qualify on the front row this season, and despite being quick in practice he was only able to take fifth on the grid for his home race.
“I think today was not a surprise for anyone in the team,” Alonso said.
“We were three or fourth tenths off pole position in the last two or three grands prix, and here some people brought new parts so we are half a second off.
“We need to recover this half-second.”
But Alonso has plenty of faith in the Ferrari in race trim.
“The car on one-lap pace is not as quick as the others,” he said.
“But on the long-run pace it’s as quick as the others, or even better.
“That is our strong point and we need to take every opportunity that comes tomorrow.
“Tomorrow we need to be optimistic and try to be on the podium, or even something better.
“We have the car to do a good race.”
When reminded that the Spanish GP is traditionally won by a front-row starter, Alonso replied: “It’s time to change this record…”
He suspects that Mercedes duo Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton – who filled the front row – will fall back in the race, making second-row starters Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen the main opposition.
“Every race is a unique race. But if you look at races in this championship, we see that Mercedes is struggling a lot in the races,” said Alonso.
“Kimi and Sebastian may be more of a target for the race itself than the Mercedes guys, and also in the championship Sebastian is first and Kimi is second.
“It would be nice to finish the race in front of them. And I think if you finish in front of them, you will be very close to victory here.”
Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen expects business as usual after yet another solid qualifying performance. Autosport.com has the story.
Kimi Raikkonen does not see himself as an automatic candidate for victory at the Spanish Grand Prix, despite securing a place on the second row of the grid.
Although Lotus showed some strong race pace during Friday practice, and has managed to deliver a step forward with its qualifying form, he is not getting carried away about his prospects.
“I think it is going to be normal chances,” said Raikkonen, who starts fourth. “We have to make a good start and then try to make the best laps.
“Mercedes is consistently not as strong in the races as they are in qualifying, so we’ll do our best and see where we end up.”
Raikkonen said that he was pretty happy with how qualifying had panned out, and that it was no shock for his outfit not to have the single lap pace of Mercedes.
“It has been pretty OK all weekend,” he said of the car. “For sure we didn’t have the speed of Mercedes, but we have seen that in the last few races they are very strong in qualifying so we did pretty okay.
“It is very close between the cars here, and you really have to make the best out of it. I think it is pretty OK. We are a bit better than we were in the last race.”
Although Lotus has shown itself to be easier on its tyres than other teams, Raikkonen is unsure if his outfit will be able to get away with one less stop in the race.
“I don’t know what the others are doing and don’t know our plan yet. We see what we are going to do, and how it is at the beginning of the race. I don’t think we can do less stops than the others.”
Felipe Massa will receive a three-place grid penalty for the Spanish Grand Prix for impeding Mark Webber in Q2.
Esteban Gutierrez gets the same punishment for blocking Kimi Raikkonen earlier in the session.
Ferrari driver Massa had qualified alongside team-mate Fernando Alonso in sixth place.
He had been on a slow lap in Q2 when Webber came up behind him in the final sector.
Massa felt he had done enough to stay out of the way by clinging to the inside line.
“I was pushing on the inside of the corner and trying not to create a battle with him,” he said.
Webber had suspected that Massa had not been informed of his presence.
“It’s disappointing. Felipe doesn’t do that on purpose, maybe the radio communication wasn’t good for his car,” said Webber.
“It is a frustrating thing for any of us top guys because we’re always generally very good with each other.”
The Red Bull driver was only eighth fastest in Q3, saying his rear tyres were worn out before the end of his flying lap.
“I lost the rears, had no rear tyre left. We didn’t expect that to happen, but it did,” Webber said.
“I bled a lot of lap time from Turn 9 to the start/finish, and then you’re losing rows on the grid unfortunately as it’s that type of qualifying.”
The Gutierrez/Raikkonen incident occurred in the final corners during Q2.
Gutierrez had originally been 16th on the grid.
Source: Autosport.com
The McLaren update – a new front wing – that was introduced to this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix will not be used over a legality fear. Autosport.com has the details.
McLaren opted not to run its latest-specification front wing in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix because it did not have the chance to check it would pass the FIA’s bodywork flexibility tests.
A pair of new front wings reached Barcelona overnight, but ahead of Saturday morning practice the decision was made not to risk running them without checking.
“It was very tight,” said team principal Martin Whitmarsh when asked why the new front wing design was not used.
“We were unable to be confident that they complied legally and we took the decision that unless you are confident in the compliance of the wings then you shouldn’t use them.”
McLaren had hoped to test the flexibility of the parts on the FIA test apparatus but did not get the opportunity to do so before free practice.
While the wings complied with the regulations when tested in-house, the team did not want to leave itself open to disqualification should its tolerances have been incorrect.
“You will see people queuing down at what is known as the ‘bridge of doom’ and it’s the tests that go on there that determine whether the car is legal or not.
“We and other teams test parts before they are here, the tolerances of stiffness and dimensions is very tight.
“Everyone does their own test but everyone tests on critical issues on the FIA equipment.
“If you can’t do that, given the tolerances, you have got inherent risk.”
Whitmarsh did not blame the FIA for not being able to test the wing, accepting that the apparatus did not have to be available to McLaren when it wanted to use it.
“The hope was that we would have the ability to get onto the rig but in fairness to the FIA, they have got no obligation to make it available to use early on a Saturday morning so there is no criticism of them – that was the chance that we took.
“Without that check, it wasn’t prudent to go forward.”
McLaren’s major upgrade package did improve the car, with Sergio Perez turning in its best qualifying performance of the year with seventh fastest time in Q2, but Whitmarsh admitted that it could have been better.
He pointed to the improved correlation between factory simulations and track performance as one major positive.
“The simulation before the start of the season was over-optimistic and we had poor correlation but often when you look back at it and are really honest with yourself [you realise] there was some will to believe data and to interpret data in a more positive way than it really [should have been].
“The simulation coming here was more modest in expectation.
“We hoped that we would find more performance than the simulation and if you want to take some positives out of the weekend, there is a better correlation.
“But clearly we haven’t made the step forward that we need or want to make.”
McLaren has further upgrades planned for the upcoming Monaco and Canadian Grands Prix, building on the Spanish GP package, which includes a new front wing first run on Friday, a new rear wing designs and modified rear suspension uprights amid a raft of changes.
Despite recording their third consecutive pole position, the Mercedes team’s race pace drops off compared to qualifying. The team are not feeling confident over their tyre woes. Autosport.com has the news story.
Ross Brawn says Mercedes cannot be confident enough that it has sorted its tyre woes to rule out a repeat of its Bahrain Grand Prix woes in Spain.
Although the team believes that it has made progress with its degradation issues, Brawn says that it is still unsure about its chances of keeping front row duo Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton at the head of the field.
“The race is the key part and that is what ultimately counts,” said Brawn, when asked by AUTOSPORT if the team was more confident about its prospects than it was in Bahrain.
“It is better if you start at the front end as we are, but having a good set-up and good usage of the tyres is absolutely critical.
“We have spent a lot of time this weekend devoted to it, so I don’t think we could have done any more work. But quite frankly we won’t know until tomorrow, because you don’t know what shape the others are in.
“We were better today on our race sim than we were yesterday, which is good, but whether it is enough we don’t know.
“The key thing for us is to run our own race and not try and outrace other people who are better with their tyres, because when you do that you do twice as much damage. So we will run our own race and see where that puts us.”
When asked if there was a chance Rosberg could drop from pole to ninth like he did in Bahrain, Brawn said: “I think he could do. The thing with the tyres we have at the moment is that everyone out there on track is trying to drive to the limit of the tyres.
“Once you exceed the limit the tyre is gone. It is not a tyre that you can take over the limit, cool it down and then come back again.
“Everybody out there is having to manage the tyres in the best way they can. I think almost any track you go to you can damage tyres and spoil your race – be it Bahrain, here, Monaco, Montreal.
“It is up to the drivers and team to deal with that in the best way and the smartest ones will succeed.”
Rosberg reiterated that careful approach, saying Mercedes should not expect a dramatically different experience from what happened in Bahrain.
“I am very cautious because Bahrain was very exciting on Saturday and not a nice experience on Sunday – not enjoyable.
“So I have a bit more caution today, but I am still very happy with pole. It is a great feeling.
“I am sure we have done improvements for the race but the target is to be better than last time. We should not expect massive steps. We want to be a bit better than last time. Lewis finished fifth in Bahrain so that should be the realistic target.”