Qualifying for the season-opener Australian Grand Prix will be postponed until 11.00 am local time on Sunday morning due to heavy rain showers in Melbourne.
A delayed Q1 managed to take place after thirty minutes, but the start of Q2 was repeatedly put back due to the weather conditions.
The decision to postpone the rest of the session was finally taken nearly two hours after qualifying had begun.
The situation was complicated by further showers being forecast, so that even if the track improved, the likelihood was that the rain would immediately return.
Fading light added a further pressure to fit in Q2 and Q3.
Before the postponement was announced the FIA race director Charlie Whiting said: “After Q1 there was a lot of debris to pick up off the track plus the fact it had rained a little heavier. So we want to try to clear as much water off the track as possible. So we think a twenty minute delay is what we need.”
“The guys are out there working really hard to clear the water off the track. We do have the prospect of another quite heavy shower between now and half past six so I’m not sure that we’ll be able to start at half past six but we’ll do the best we can.”
As for the track action, Nico Rosberg went quickest in Q1. The Mercedes team timed the moment right to get both cars out at the start of the session.
This meant Rosberg spent a long while on top, although he had to fight to get the position back again after everyone switched to intermediates with five minutes to go.
His team-mate Lewis Hamilton spun at Turn 2, sustaining minor rear wing damage as he nudged the barriers. Briefly stranded on the sodden grass, he eventually managed to reverse back onto the track.
That was one of many incidents during the running that did take place.
Felipe Massa and both Caterhams had to limp back to the pits minus front wings after spinning into the barriers.
Esteban Gutierrez had a similar incident but ended up stranded on track in a damaged Sauber. That left him P18 on the grid, just behind a frustrated Pastor Maldonado.
Jules Bianchi led the rest of the rear pack in his Marussia, with the crashing Caterhams at the very back.
Provisional times from the end of Q3:
1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m43.380s
2. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m43.850s
3. Romain Grosjean Lotus Renault 1m44.284s
4. Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes 1m44.300s
5. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m44.472s
6. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m44.635s
7. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m44.657s
8. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m44.688s
9. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m44.871s
10. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m45.456s
11. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m45.545s
12. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m45.601s
13. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1m45.930s
14. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m46.450s
15. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1m47.328s
16. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m47.330s
17. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m47.614s
18. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m47.776s
19. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Cosworth 1m48.147s
20. Max Chilton Marussia-Cosworth 1m48.909s
21. Giedo van der Garde Caterham-Renault 1m49.519s
22. Charles Pic Caterham-Renault 1m50.626s
107 per cent time: 1m45.301s
*Q2 and Q3 will take place on March 17th, just a few hours before the race at Albert Park.
Williams driver Pastor Maldonado has described his car as “undriveable”. Autosport.com has the story.
Pastor Maldonado declared that Williams has taken a huge step backwards this season after being eliminated from Australian Grand Prix qualifying in Q1.
Maldonado had been delighted with the form of the 2013 Williams after its initial tests, but the car has been off the pace in Melbourne so far.
Although his team-mate Valtteri Bottas made it through to the currently-delayed Q2 in 14th place, Maldonado could only manage 17th.
“I think we’re back to the condition of two years ago in the team,” said Maldonado.
“We need to work very hard to solve the problems.
“The car is undriveable at the moment and we need to work. That’s it.”
Maldonado believes the main issue is Williams failing to get the right set-up for the Albert Park track.
“For whatever reason, we didn’t adapt our car to this track, whatever the conditions,” he said.
“In the wet we were slow, in the dry as well.”
The Venezuelan is slightly more optimistic about his race prospects.
“The pace for tomorrow seems to be much better but qualifying pace is really bad,” Maldonado said.
As for Lewis Hamilton, who had a spin at Turn 2 just after recording his fastest lap in Q1, the cause of the problem was splitter damage. Autosport.com has the details.
Lewis Hamilton’s off during the second free practice session for the Australian Grand Prix was caused by splitter damage.
The Mercedes driver ploughed into the gravel at Turn 6 in the closing stages of the 90-minute session after losing front-end downforce.
“I had separation of the front splitter, so it was pushed right up underneath and touching the underneath of the chassis,” said Hamilton.
“I lost a lot of front end. I went into Turn 6, turned in and nothing really happened, I just went straight on.
“I was complaining of shed-loads of understeer as I was beginning my long run. I came in and asked for three holes in the front wing, which is quite a lot.
“As they did that, they changed tyres and I went back out. I was braking, turned in and it just didn’t turn.
“I thought to myself, ‘what an idiot’, but when I got back they explained to me that the front of the bib underneath the chassis was broken.”
Hamilton admitted that the damage might have been caused when he took a bite of the gravel earlier in the session.
But he was relieved that there was no more significant damage to the car.
“Potentially, it was when I went wide,” he said when asked about the cause of the damage.
“Thankfully, nothing was really damaged [in the off]. It’s an easy fix.”
Hamilton ended the session in seventh, 0.864 seconds off the pace, but Nico Rosberg gave a clearer indication of the potential of the Mercedes by lapping third fastest, just four-tenths off pacesetter Sebastian Vettel.
Lewis Hamilton, MercedesHamilton admitted that he was surprised with the pace of the car, but downplayed suggestions that Mercedes is now best of the rest behind Red Bull.
“We are not massively off the Red Bulls, which is incredible and shows what a great job all the guys back in the factory have done,” said Hamilton.
“There have been a couple of issues, which we are going to work hard to fix, but I don’t think it’s anything that we can’t.
“I wasn’t expecting to be as competitive as we were, that’s a huge plus.
“It’s too early to say that we are best of the rest but we are definitely up there. I’m massively happy.”
Formula 1 teams and drivers say postponing the rest of Australian Grand Prix qualifying to Sunday morning was the only sensible decision.
Repeated heavy rain showers and the approach of darkness meant only Q1 could be run on Saturday.
Q2 and Q3 will now take place at 11am local time, six hours before the scheduled race start.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said the organisers made the right call.
“It is a shame because of the weather but absolutely the right decision was made to stop the qualifying and postpone it for tomorrow,” he said.
“The conditions were just deteriorating too quickly with the daylight and too much standing water.
“Hopefully it will blow through and we will be back in the morning.”
McLaren sporting director Sam Michael said the main issue was how hard the repeated showers were, leaving only fleeting periods of acceptable track conditions.
“It was too wet and the visibility is pretty poor,” he said.
“When they started Q1 it was right on the limit of aquaplaning on the full wet.
“Fortunately then it did get to a point where you could get onto inters, which Jenson Button judged very well and then everyone followed.
“From that point it went ‘bang’, full wets again. It was a narrow window and that was it.”
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was one of several drivers who crashed during Q1. He was able to return to the pits with front end damage after spinning into the wall on the exit of Turn 2.
“I lost the car because I just touched the white line without trying to do anything,” he said.
Felipe Massa’s damaged Ferrari, Melbourne 2013″I was very lucky to carry on given the way I hit, the way I crashed.”
He confirmed that the slippery circuit marking lines were a bigger issue than standing water.
“It’s more white lines than aquaplaning, but when it’s raining a lot they need to stop.”
McLaren driver Jenson Button hoped F1 did not receive too much criticism for the rain delay.
“There are so many sports that don’t play if it is raining, motorsports and other sports,” he said.
“We have a car and tyres that are good enough in certain conditions but this is impossible, and it is not just about the show when it is like this.
“This is way too dangerous – and it is sad. Hopefully the fans understand that and we will make sure we do a great job in the morning.”
Source: Autosport.com
The Marussia team are happy by the shrinking gap to the midfield pack. Autosport.com has the story.
Marussia believes that it is possible to get within striking distance of the back of the Formula 1 midfield pack this season after showing promising pace during the Australian Grand Prix weekend.
Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton qualified 19th and 20th, comfortably ahead of the Caterhams and also within a second of both Williams cars as well as Esteban Gutierrez’s Sauber and Adrian Sutil’s Force India.
The Marussias had been within a second of the midfield stragglers during Friday practice in dry conditions and with gaps in the race usually narrower than in qualifying, hopes are high for Sunday.
“I think so,” Marussia team principal John Booth told AUTOSPORT when asked if he thought it would be possible to keep the back of the midfield pack in sight.
“We expected to be in a hole somewhere between Caterham and the rest.
“To a certain extent, that is true but at least now we have a gap that we can close.
“If it was a second-and-a-half gap, we would have been lost in no man’s land, not knowing what to do in respect of how hard to chase this year and how hard to chase 2014.
“But that gap appears at the moment to be closer than we thought it was and it gives us something to close down.”
Chilton is hopeful of being within striking distance in Sunday’s race.
While he does not believe that the car is quick enough to be ahead on merit, he is hopeful that if some midfield cars hit trouble, the Marussias will be able to trouble them.
“It’s a lot nearer than I thought it was going to be,” Chilton told AUTOSPORT.
“Tomorrow, wet or dry, if we play our cards right and do the right strategy we won’t be too far away, so we could be challenging [the midfield].”
AUTOSPORT SAYS…
A back-of-the-grid team’s rhetoric about troubling the midfield pack seems old hat after years of Caterham flattering to deceive, but Marussia’s start to the season is genuinely impressive.
Nobody in the team is arguing that their car is quicker or even as quick as the back of that group, but the limited evidence so far suggests that its race pace will be enough at least to keep the midfield within sight and perhaps even get ahead of any stragglers who hit trouble, which is the limit of its ambitions.
MarussiaThat’s not to say that Marussia’s form has been transformed as last year, on average, its raw pace was 3.934 per cent off the fastest.
Using Friday afternoon practice as the best available dry weather comparison, it’s 4.049 per cent off in Australia.
But while the likes of Red Bull have taken a step forward, the back of the midfield appears to have lost ground, allowing Marussia to be potentially close enough to hang on.
While it is still locked in a largely private battle with Caterham, a battle it is currently winning comfortably, this is at least evidence that the smallest team in F1 is starting to make progress after a difficult start to its existence.
After setting the quickest time in Q1, Nico Rosberg believes if the session continued in the wet, the Mercedes team would be celebrating a front row start in Melbourne. Autosport.com has the details.
Nico Rosberg is certain he would have been on the front row if Australian Grand Prix qualifying had run its full course in the wet on Saturday.
Mercedes driver Rosberg was fastest in Q1, the only session that took place before a series of heavy showers prompted the FIA to postpone the remaining segments until Sunday morning.
“It’s such a pity that the qualifying was stopped because in those conditions I was feeling really good and the car was going well,” Rosberg said.
“A front row grid position was definitely on the cards today, so that’s a bit disappointing.”
He believes Saturday’s performance is firm proof of Mercedes’ progress.
“It’s already looking a lot better than last year,” Rosberg said.
“We wouldn’t have been that quick in the wet at the end of last year, that’s for sure.”
Rosberg admitted that a similar performance was unlikely if the weather improved.
“If qualifying is going to be dry, it will definitely make it more difficult for us to be right on top,” he said.
“But we have a good car so a good result is definitely possible.”
Lewis Hamilton goes off, Melbourne 2013Team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who was 10th quickest in Saturday’s Q1 session and had a spin, said that the Mercedes was good in both wet and dry conditions, but he hoped that the weather was dry on Sunday.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he said of qualifying on Sunday morning. “It was quite tricky out there for everyone today.
“It’s one of the slipperiest tracks I’ve driven on in the rain, because there are a lot of white lines which are painted black.
“I hope it’s dry tomorrow. We’ve got a good car in both the dry and the wet, but in the rain it obviously becomes more of a lottery.
“In the dry I think we have a consistent opportunity to qualify reasonably high up.”
As for McLaren, the team will persist with the troubled 2013 car despite a slow start on Friday’s two practice sessions in Albert Park. Autosport.com has the news story.
McLaren remains committed to figuring out its troublesome MP4-28, despite admitting that reverting to last year’s car could be an option.
After a difficult start to the campaign in Australia, where wet weather on Saturday helped disguise its competitive struggles in the dry, McLaren is still convinced it can turn the new MP4-28 into a strong contender.
When asked if going back to last year’s car was something the team could do, team boss Martin Whitmarsh said: “It is possible, but I think at the moment the best thing for us is to work and understand this car.
“The season is incredibly long; if you are going to win races and championship you have to develop the car during the whole year.
“We have wanted to give ourselves the scope to do that, and probably if we had stuck on the original concepts of last year’s car we would probably be stronger here today.
“But we have made a decision. We will work through this and we will have a car with more potential than we had last year.”
Whitmarsh suggested that part of the problem with the new car is that its performance is too peaky, which means its speed is only delivered in a very narrow window.
This was highlighted at the Jerez test in February when Jenson Button was able to deliver a very competitive lap time only with a low ride height that could not be used during an actual race.
Button believes that the way Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was able to fight for the championship last year, despite a difficult start to the season, should reassure McLaren.
Jenson Button”Fernando qualified 1.5 seconds off the pace here last year and almost won the championship, so it is a possible for a frontrunning team to make the deficit up,” explained Button. “Whether it is the same as their situation I don’t know.
“Qualifying being dry is probably not a good thing for us, because in the wet we could be further up the grid, but it might be a good thing for us to see where we stand.
“After the race we will know where we are, our strengths, weaknesses and there are always strengths and weaknesses, it is just a question of how many of each.
“It’s not the place we would like to be at the start of the year, it is not where we were last year at this time, but it is a very different situation.”
Williams technical director Mike Coughlan has admitted that the team must revert the specification of its car to closer to the launch configuration.
The team has struggled throughout the Australian Grand Prix weekend, with Pastor Maldonado describing the car as “undriveable” after qualifying.
While Coughlan said that it would be “simplistic” to describe the team as having to revert all the way to the launch specification, he accepts that the development direction has been wrong after a promising first test for the FW35.
“The philosophy is to backtrack a little bit to where we thought we had made a significant step forward,” Coughlan told AUTOSPORT.
“Let’s start again from there and have a look at what directions we took.
“It’s a little bit simplistic, but the basic gist is that we will go back to that [launch specification] where we thought we had made a performance increase.”
Williams was forced to abandon its latest exhaust/sidepod configuration after back-to-backing it with the previous version on Friday.
But although Coughlan accepted that this is an area where Williams is struggling, it is not the sole area of focus.
“There are some aspects of exhaust blowing which are quite difficult to either model or to analyse,” said Coughlan.
“We were late to this game [harnessing exhaust gases for downforce], we freely admitted that we had a bit of catching up to do and several teams have had multiple goes at it over time.
“We see a direction, we see where we are good at it and we see where we have a little bit to catch up on.
Valtteri Bottas, Williams, Melbourne 2013″It’s one of them [the areas of focus] as it is an area that reaps significant reward, but there isn’t a single area that we don’t constantly think of making better.”
Despite the problems, Coughlan insists that there is no fundamental issue with the car that would force a redesign.
He is hopeful that progress can be made at next week’s Malaysian Grand Prix, with bigger upgrades possible as early as the third round of the championship in China.
“We don’t have a fundamental flexing issue [for example],” he said.
“We had a core car that worked very well, which gives us the belief that we have either gone wrong in some aerodynamic pieces or in some of the steps that we’ve done.
“We don’t believe we have a redesign to do. We have taken a wrong direction and we will come back from that.”
Source: Autosport.com