Nico Rosberg scored an important pole position at the Circuit of the Americans, following a twenty-hour delay and worsening conditions which postponed the final part of qualifying.
It was a complete washout on Saturday with many of the teams entertaining the soaking wet fans with fun and activities, including dancing! Come the on-track action, the qualifying session was held on Sunday morning but the rain continue to fall and the race officials decided to suspend after Q2.
Rosberg set the fastest time in that segment, a tenth clear of his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who Rosberg must beat in the United States Grand Prix if he is to prevent Hamilton clinching a third world championship at this event.
Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull was fastest of all in Q1, but he ended up third on the grid, over a second slower than the Silver Arrows.
His team-mate Daniil Kvyat was fourth quickest, just ahead of Sebastian Vettel, who will receive a ten-place grid penalty for taking a fresh engine this weekend.
Sergio Perez beat Force India team-mate Nico Hulkenberg to the sixth fastest time by just over a tenth, while Kimi Raikkonen (who will also take a grid penalty), Felipe Massa and Max Verstappen rounded out the top ten.
Fernando Alonso’s predictions of a possible top-ten position in qualifying almost came true, as the McLaren driver missed out by less than a tenth of a second to Verstappen in Q2.
Several drivers, including reigning world champion Hamilton and 2007 title winner Raikkonen, survived a sliding moment at Turn 10 as rain worsened in this segment of qualifying, and Alonso’s team-mate Jenson Button suggested over team radio that conditions were bordering on unsafe.
Splashing to P11 for Alonso represented McLaren’s best qualifying result of the season so far, while Valtteri Bottas was 0.069 seconds slower than Alonso in P12, Bottas complaining of broken suspension on his FW37.
Jenson Button split the Lotus of Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado in completing the top 15.
Carlos Sainz Jr joined the Saubers and Manor-Marussias in failing to escape Q1, after crashing heavily in the early stages of that session.
Sainz lost the rear of his Toro Rosso over the kerb at Turn 3, before crashing hard into the barriers on the outside of Turn 4 and causing the session to be stopped while track marshals recovered his broken STR10.
The Toro Rosso racer will need permission to start the race from the back of the grid after failing to set a time fast enough to make the 107 per cent cut-off.
After the session resumed, Vettel’s Ferrari glanced the barriers following a spin at Turn 10, and the four-time world champion tumbled down the timesheet as others gradually improved their times.
The Saubers tried in vain to dislodge Vettel’s Ferrari from P15 as Q1 came to a close.
Marcus Ericsson was over a second adrift in the end, while team-mate Nasr was a further 0.9 seconds shy, complaining of “zero rear grip” from his C34.
United States Grand Prix, qualifying positions:
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m56.824s
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m56.929s
3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m57.969s
4 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull-Renault 1m58.434s
5 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m59.210s
6 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m59.333s
7 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m59.999s
8 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso-Renault 2m00.199s
9 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 2m00.265s
10 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 2m00.334s
11 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Mercedes 2m00.595s
12 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 2m01.193s
13 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Mercedes 2m01.604s
14 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 2m02.212s
15 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m58.596s*
16 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 2m03.194s
17 Alexander Rossi Marussia-Ferrari 2m04.176s
18 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m59.703s*
19 Will Stevens Marussia-Ferrari 2m04.526s
20 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso-Renault 2m07.304s
*Ten-place grid penalties for Vettel and Raikkonen
Grid update following a penalty for the Williams driver. Details provided by Formula1.com:
Valtteri Bottas has been given a five-place grid drop for this afternoon’s 2015 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix after his gearbox failed during qualifying earlier, forcing his Williams team to replace it.
Bottas failed to make the cut for Q3 – subsequently cancelled due to rain – thanks to the issue, and as the gearbox had not completed the required six race cycle, the Finn has been penalised.
It means he will now line up 16th on the provisional grid, with team mate Felipe Massa seventh.
The other drivers to take penalties this weekend are Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen, who both drop ten grid places for engine changes, and Marussia’s Will Stevens, who was penalised 20 places for power unit component changes.
The official grid thus reads: Rosberg, Hamilton; Ricciardo, Kvyat; Perez, Hulkenberg; Massa, Verstappen; Alonso, Grosjean; Button, Maldonado; Vettel, Ericsson; Nasr, Bottas; Rossi, Raikkonen; Stevens, Sainz.
Think this weekend in the United States is the first time qualifying will have to be completed on race day? Think again. It is in fact the fourth such occurrence in barely more than a decade…
Japan 2004: Nearby Hurricane Patricia has brought torrential weather conditions to Austin this weekend, but back in 2004 it was another monumental weather system – Typhoon Ma-on – that forced the FIA to postpone qualifying in Japan until the morning of the race. With appalling conditions contributing to several gnarly off-track moments in Friday practice, and the 160km/h super storm moving ever closer, the decision was made to close Suzuka on the Saturday. However, in the end the storm passed by without incident, with Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher sweeping to pole position on a drying track on Sunday morning before racing to his 13th victory of the season later that afternoon.
Japan 2010: Six years on from Ma-on, another huge storm passed over Suzuka, bringing with it an enormous amount of rainfall and leading to the eventual postponement of qualifying. Unlike before, race control waited in vain for a window in the weather before eventually cancelling the session, leaving the teams to create their own entertainment by racing makeshift miniature rafts down the flooded pit lane. “I know it is not an easy decision to take, but in those conditions we have no control of our cars,” said Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel. “For the majority of people it’s difficult to understand – you just think, ‘Okay, put the rain tyres on and you’ll be fine’. But it’s not as easy as that. We would just be passengers…” The next day, under bright sunny skies, Vettel waltzed to pole position before leading Mark Webber across the line in a Red Bull one-two some five hours later.
Australia 2013: Back in 1991 a biblical rainstorm caused the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide to be abandoned after just 14 chaos-strewn laps. The weather wasn’t quite that horrendous in Melbourne in 2013, but it was bad enough to cause qualifying to be postponed mid-session. Q1 had taken place after a delayed start, with many drivers having off-track adventures, including Ferrari’s Felipe Massa who spun and hit a wall and Williams’ Pastor Maldonado who went off-roading and nearly took out an unsuspecting seagull. But with the rain worsening and daylight fading, race stewards decided to move Q2 and Q3 to race morning, when, in near perfect conditions, Sebastian Vettel took pole for Red Bull. However, the German wouldn’t find things so easy in the race, with Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen making use of a canny tyre strategy to pick up his 20th career win ahead of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Vettel.
Source: Formula1.com