Catalunya Review

Qualifying Review

Nick Heidfeld's car caught fire in practice meaning that he couldn't get his car ready for the start of qualifying. He had to take up last place on the grid for the race. Barrichello had a shocker of a qualifying session finishing in p19, both Barrichello & Williams haven't turned up this season. The same can be said to his team mate Maldonardo this season (who I thought was a ghost driver the amount of times he got shown on the BBC) however Moldonardo decided to put his racing shoes on this weekend. He surprised everyone by getting through to the shootout. It seemed to be the most tactical qualifying of the season as teams were deciding which tyres to use.

Everyone was on soft tyres to get the fastest time possible except for Force India and Michael Schumacher. Schumacher getting into the shootout and changing his tyres to the hard composite. Meaning he would settle for 10th as he was losing 2 seconds a lap off everyone else. Force India chose to change their tyres in session 2 to hard composite as they knew they weren't going to get into the shootout so they qualified down in 16th& 17th. But with hard tyres they knew they would have a slight advantage over the surrounding teams. Kovalainen finishing 15th was a great achievement for Lotus too but he was on the soft tyres so you always knew he was going to struggle holding off the Force India’s behind him in the race. It was expected that Red Bull would be fighting it out for pole and it went along with that trend. Sebastian Vettel having a KERs issue (as always) allowing Mark Webber to snatch pole from the young German. Vettel had to settle for second as he didn’t want to use unnecessary tyres in order to pip his team mate.

Qualifying results

1 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 2. Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 3. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 4. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 5.Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 6. Vitaly Petrov Renault 7. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 8. Felipe Massa Ferrari 9. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 10.Michael Schumacher Mercedes 11. Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 12. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 13. Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 14. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 15. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 16. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 17. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 18. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 19. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 20. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 21.Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 22. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 23. Jerome d'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 24.Nick Heidfeld Renault

Quotes from Qualifying

Martin Brundle to David Coultard - ‘Good thinking Batman’

Jake Humpreys – ‘There is no luck in formula one and there is no logic either’.

Race Review

Fernando Alonso may as well have pulled a rabbit out his hat whilst driving to the first corner. Nobody expected him to be in front after the first corner especially the two Red-Bulls. A brilliant start from the Spaniard allowed him to take the lead and lead for the first 18 laps until he pitted. Mark Webber was covering Vettel but didn’t expect to be fighting more than Vettel at the first corner allowing Alonso to slip up the blind side. Webber continuing to keep up the trend of getting over taken and losing his position before the first corner.

There was action at the back of the grid too with Heidfeld having to start at the back and take inspiration from Webber’s previous races which meant he had to do ‘a Webber’. He started off brightly and gradually moved up the field slowly. As he didn’t do any laps in qualifying he had lots of tyres to use up which gave him an advantage on people driving on old tyres. He supremely moved up the field and whilst not doing as well as Webber he did do amazingly well to get from 24th to finish 8th.
After Alonso pitted on lap 18, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel decided to slug it out at the front. However both were hindered by technical problems as Vettel’s DRS stopped working and Hamilton had problems with KERs. Which meant it would be a stalemate and Hamilton would have to pass the German using his talent alone, yet he couldn’t manage to muster it as Vettel defended his position well using KERs to cancel out the DRS of Hamilton. For all the hype about Alonso Fever at the start of the race he did well to get in front however he couldn’t keep up the pace however still did well to finish p5.

Sauber had a great day in Catalunya as both drivers finishing in the top 10. Perez proving why he was given a seat and matching the race he had in Melbourne. Kobayashi as standard getting into the top 10 too, which confirms he is the best newer driver on the grid. He is supremely consistent and bold which could see him get given a seat at either Renualt, Mercedes or even Ferrari next season.

Some racers had a horrid race along with Barrrichello who seemed to disappear in and out of the race as people must have thought he had gone home and watched the race on his couch. Rosberg was unproductive too when his DRS failed early on and had to stick behind his team mate all race as he couldn’t gather enough speed to overtake leaving him extremely frustrated. Massa had a very bad day at the office and was struggling around not really bothering anybody and then he just pulled up. It was later explained as gearbox issues. With Alonso signing a new 5 year deal at Ferrari he looks bewildered and it looks like his seat will be stolen by another driver next year with Hulkenburg or Kobyashi taking it.

Drivers of the day

Lewis Hamilton
Nick Heidfeld
Sergio Perez

Villains of the day

McClaren Overall Designers, Lewis’s overalls looked like the child who designed the Conservative party logo had designed them.

Rubens Barrichello

Martin Brundle – hates me to say it as he is such a great commentator but he moaned about the Catalnya track too much you thought he despised it.

Next Race is Monaco in 4 days time. See you all there!