Nico Rosberg achieved his first pole position of the season, halting the run from his team-mate Lewis Hamilton, at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The Mercedes driver laid down the marker with a time of one minute, 24.681 seconds on his first Q3 run. That proved enough as Hamilton was unable to beat this on his second run.
In fact, the speed advantage from the Silver Arrows proved significant as Hamilton and Rosberg could afford to run the harder tyre compound and still outpace everyone else in Q1.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was best-of-the-rest and yet he was almost eight tenths adrift of Rosberg, while his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen used a new set of medium tyres to get through Q1 and paid the price.
The Iceman was four tenths slower on his sole Q3 run than he had been in Q2 and ended up seventh on the grid, behind the Williams of Valtteri Bottas and the Toro Rossos of Carlos Sainz Jr and Max Verstappen that have looked strong all weekend.
This was a fantastic achievement by Scuderia Toro Rosso, with both drivers recording a top six grid positions in their first appearance at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Felipe Massa ended up ninth fastest, over a second slower than his Williams team-mate Bottas.
The Brazilian split the Red Bulls, with Daniil Kvyat getting the better of team-mate Daniel Ricciardo by 0.141 seconds to qualify eighth.
This was a tough qualifying session for Lotus, as both drivers failed to make it through to Q3 by over half a second. Romain Grosjean will start P11 – complaining of a lack of front-end grip – while Pastor Maldonado is P12.
The McLarens made it through to Q2 for the first time this season, but lacked the speed to be top ten contenders.
Home crowd favourite Fernando Alonso was eleventh fastest on his first Q2 run on used medium tyres, but he failed to improve on new rubber on his second run and slipped down to P13, one position ahead of team-mate Jenson Button.
Felipe Nasr’s Sauber split the Honda-powered cars in Q1, but the Brazilian lost pace in Q2 and ended up P15.
His team-mate Marcus Ericsson joined the Force Indias and Manor Marussias in falling after the first segment of the qualifying session.
Ericsson found six tenths of a second on his final run in Q1, but it wasn’t enough for him to join team-mate Nasr in Q2.
Ericsson was almost half a second slower than Nasr – lapping 0.171 seconds shy of making the cut – just ahead of the struggling Force Indias of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez.
The Manor predictably brought up the rear of the grid, almost 2.8 seconds adrift of the next quickest car.
Will Stevens again had the better of team-mate Roberto Merhi, to the tune of eight tenths of a second.
Spanish Grand Prix, qualifying positions:
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m24.681s
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m24.948s
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m25.458s
4 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1m25.694s
5 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso-Renault 1m26.136s
6 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso-Renault 1m26.249s
7 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m26.414s
8 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull-Renault 1m26.629s
9 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m26.757s
10 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m26.770s
11 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Mercedes 1m27.375s
12 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Mercedes 1m27.450s
13 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 1m27.760s
14 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 1m27.854s
15 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 1m28.005s
16 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1m28.112s
17 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m28.365s
18 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m28.442s
19 Will Stevens Marussia-Ferrari 1m31.200s
20 Roberto Merhi Marussia-Ferrari 1m32.038s
Nico Rosberg has conceded his slack qualifying performance in Bahrain provided the spur to grab his first pole position of the Formula 1 season in Spain.
Rosberg ended Hamilton’s run of four successive poles to start the year with a lap of 1m24.681s at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya, beating the 30-year-old by 0.267secs.
At a point in the season when Rosberg appeared to have run out of ideas on how to beat Hamilton, the German finally managed to make his Mercedes team-mate second best.
It was a response to his poor display in Bahrain three weeks ago when Rosberg admitted to poor strategy in Q2 by focusing too much on the race, so heading into Q3 with a lack of rhythm.
“Bahrain was still on my mind,” Rosberg admitted after taking pole in Spain.
“I wanted to make sure I didn’t make that mistake again, so I got myself in the rhythm in Q2 and it worked very well for me today.”
Asked whether his qualifying performance was much needed, he replied: “I needed it sooner rather than later.
“It’s one step in the right direction to winning the race this weekend, a good day in the office.
“With overtaking difficult here starting in front is a particularly big advantage.”
Despite playing second fiddle to Hamilton virtually all season, Rosberg downplayed any psychological lift he might have gained on this occasion.
“It [pole] is just important for tomorrow’s race,” added Rosberg. “It’s better to start first than second, that’s obvious.
“It’s good, it’s great, I feel happy, so it’s good for tomorrow.
“And there will be no different mindset for the race. It’s the same thing, I try to go for it, go for the best possible result.
“With the car I have it will be to try and go for the win, and take the advantage of starting first.”
Source: Autosport.com
Sebastian Vettel says Mercedes has extended the performance gap to Ferrari following qualifying. Autosport.com has the story.
Ferrari Formula 1 driver Sebastian Vettel believes Mercedes is enjoying a bigger advantage than usual at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.
Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton fought an exclusive battle for pole position at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya, with Vettel a distant third in the lead Ferrari.
Vettel felt after Friday’s free practice running that Ferrari had failed to make up any ground on Mercedes since the Bahrain Grand Prix, but following qualifying he took it one step further to suggest that the difference between the two teams has increased.
“The gap is probably a bit bigger than it was the last couple of races,” said Vettel.
“I don’t think it is down to one thing only because we are struggling a bit more this weekend.”
For this race the teams are using the same Pirelli tyre compounds as in Malaysia – hard and medium – where Vettel gave Ferrari its first win for almost two years.
While temperatures are again hot – although not like the searing heat as at Sepang – Vettel does not see the rubber working to his team’s advantage on this occasion.
“Yes, the same tyres is correct, but it’s a different weekend, a different circuit as well,” he said.
“Potentially the tyres are not working as well as they did in Malaysia, so it looks like Mercedes has an edge.
“We would love to be a little closer. Being realistic they are quick.
“They are not on the first row by chance as they showed every single session this weekend they are competitive with either tyre.
“We should still be in good shape for tomorrow, and I hope for a good race, but you have to say those two guys did a very good job.
“I hope tomorrow we can be a bit closer, that it’s going to be better in the race, but we will have to see how true the gap is that is there now.”
Fernando Alonso has set his sights on a morale-boosting first points finish of the season for McLaren on Saturday despite qualifying down in 13th for his home Spanish Grand Prix.
Despite being eclipsed by impressive rookie compatriot Carlos Sainz, who will start in fifth place for Toro Rosso, Alonso believes a breakthrough is possible for his Honda-powered team.
“Tomorrow we have a real chance to get points,” said the double world champion, who left Ferrari at the end of last year.
“I think we can take points tomorrow but it doesn’t change too much,” added the twice winner at the Circuit de Catalunya.
“To be honest to finish ninth or 10th — one point or two points is not what we want. We want much bigger than that.
“But for the team motivation, to achieve some results that you can touch — because at the moment they are only hopes and words — if we can start scoring points physically in the race that will be a help.”
Former champions McLaren, the second most successful team in the sport, have not won a grand prix since 2012 and are five races into a new Honda partnership.
Saturday marked the first time this season that McLaren had got both their cars through the first phase of qualifying, with Britain’s 2009 champion Jenson Button lining up in 14th on the grid.
“It’s another step forward,” said Alonso. “I think we see the signs of improving but we know that we are a long way off and now we need to make huge steps if we want to catch the midfield cars.”
The 33 year-old Spaniard said McLaren’s long run pace and tyre management would stand them in good stead for the race but they could not afford to make any mistakes.
“I think tomorrow we have the first chance of points,” he reiterated. “But for that we need to have a perfect race and that’s what we need to try.”
Source: Reuters
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton was troubled by ‘messy set-up’ which cost him the chance for pole position. Autosport.com has the details.
Mercedes Formula 1 team boss Toto Wolff suggested the “messy” situation Lewis Hamilton got himself into with set-up contributed to him missing out on pole for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Hamilton was beaten to pole position for the first time in the 2015 F1 season when team-mate Nico Rosberg outpaced him by 0.267 seconds at Barcelona.
“Lewis got in a bit of a messy set-up situation or was unlucky with the track conditions and here we go, a couple of tenths,” said Wolff.
“I think finding the right set-up this weekend was the important bit as the track changed massively within minutes.
“It’s not completely clear to us why that was – gusts or temperatures – but you could see hitting the track in qualifying we had a mediocre car balance on the prime tyre.
“A couple of minutes later it took three or four laps to get the tyre working.
“Then we put the next set of primes on and we had a massive time improvement.
“So I guess it was sorting yourself and your set-up out and trying to extract the most from the conditions.
“In that final run Nico was able to nail it on the first set with a very good lap and Lewis suffered from the car balance.”
Hamilton said he had been struggling with the balance all weekend and was even making tweaks between qualifying runs.
In contrast, the Briton said his team-mate was making very few changes – and that had made the difference.
“I’ve been chasing it but you move the balance forwards, you move the balance rearwards and it’s like a see-saw,” said the reigning world champion.
“You put a little bit more weight on one side and it keeps going to the other side and you’re trying but you just can’t get it. The wind doesn’t really help.
“Nico has generally not made a lot of changes all weekend. He’s kept a balance and he’s not really had to move from there so he’s been comfortable from the get go.
“Often most weekends that’s how it starts off for me, but this weekend I’m just less comfortable with it.
“I’m hoping that tomorrow in the race it’s not a bad thing, hopefully.”
Kimi Raikkonen cursed his luck after one of those days at the Spanish Grand Prix where even the tyre warmer turned up the heat on the Ferrari driver.
“So far the weekend has been more difficult than I wanted and today I was still struggling, for some reason my car was sliding around,” said the Finn after qualifying only seventh fastest.
The 2007 Formula One world champion, whose team mate Sebastian Vettel qualified third, had decided on Friday night to revert to previous settings after failing to find the right balance.
“We knew it would be a risk and it might be difficult but I didn’t think that the result would have been as bad as it was today,” he said.
“It’s one of those weekends in which things keep going a little wrong here and there, and today we also lost one set of medium tyres because of the burning of a (warming) blanket.”
While Vettel was the closest to Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, Raikkonen faces a difficult afternoon with two Toro Rosso cars and a Williams ahead of him.
“Obviously we start in a position that is not ideal, but we have a good package,” he said. “I’m sure we have the speed to have a good race”
Source: Reuters
Fascinating insight on why Toro Rosso is beating the main Red Bull team so far. Feature provided by Autosport.com.
Although many were discussing the gap between Mercedes and Ferrari, a row-three lockout for Toro Rosso was arguably the biggest shock in Formula 1 qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Of course, under-performances by Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and Williams’s Felipe Massa helped turn what would have been a good result into an exceptional one, but the most interesting aspect lay in the extraordinarily large gap to Red Bull.
Given their respective histories (and budgets), no one would reasonably expect Toro Rosso to outperform its parent team, but Carlos Sainz Jr was almost half a second quicker than Daniil Kvyat – with both drivers saying afterwards they pretty much extracted the maximum from their respective cars.
Both teams share Renault propulsion, which means any differences – provided those engines are running cleanly (and none of the drivers reported problems during qualifying) – should be down to the chassis, and the drivers.
There is no doubting Sainz and team-mate Max Verstappen are exceptionally skilled, but they lack the experience of Red Bull pilots Daniel Ricciardo and Kvyat, so it’s reasonable to expect the latter pair to be slightly ahead in an even situation so early in the season.
Generally that has been the case. In fact, this was the first time a Toro Rosso has out-qualified a Red Bull this season.
For the RB11 to be so far adrift of the STR10 – on a circuit that should suit the traditional high-speed cornering strengths of Red Bull cars – is unexpected.
Perhaps the STR10 – a car that team boss Franz Tost said ahead of the campaign would be the squad’s “best ever” – is just fundamentally better than the Red Bull, and only now are we starting to see it.
Certainly, the two Toro Rosso drivers reckon their car’s capability in the sort of downforce-demanding corners that are prevalent here is a match for everything bar the pacesetting Mercedes W06.
“The car [at] every track we’ve been to in the high-speed corners we were one of the fastest – sometimes very close to Mercedes,” said Verstappen.
“We were always confident that this track would be good for us, but this good we didn’t expect.”
Sainz added: “I think we have a very strong aero package.
“The big upgrade we brought for test three gave us a lot downforce out of the box, then we went to some tracks with very long straights that were probably not benefiting us.
“But finally we came to a track that is more suited to our car, and the car is there.”
If the Toro Rosso is fundamentally a little faster than the Red Bull here, it is not actually half a second faster.
Ricciardo admitted to messing up sector three on his best lap, after a moment in Turn 10.
If he’d strung his lap together he would still have qualified behind the Toro Rossos, but only a tenth and a half behind Verstappen.
Both teams have brought upgrades to this race, but the Toro Rosso has been working well immediately, while concerns over engine mileage held Red Bull back through free practice.
But Ricciardo refused to use that as an excuse, saying Red Bull has undoubtedly slipped back as a whole this year.
“Clearly we’re slower than last year – I think we were about a second off pole here last year and [this year it’s] double that,” he said.
“For whatever reason we obviously haven’t made progress and we need to find answers.
“Last year we lacked power but we were making it up through some high-speed corners.
“Unfortunately, we’re not strong anywhere at the moment.”
A lot of blame has been laid firmly at Renault’s door for Red Bull’s poor start to the season, but the result of Saturday’s qualifying session in Spain suggests it might not be as simple as that.