Nico Rosberg took his second pole position of the year in a stunted qualifying session on Saturday. The Q3 crash of Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat brought out a red flag late in the session spoiling any final attempt for pole from the rest of the field. A single reminder of why that first banker lap is so important in Formula 1.
The Mercedes dip in performance in Singapore seemed to right itself at Suzuka with Nico and teammate Lewis Hamilton just .076s behind. They were followed by a resurgent Williams F1 effort from Valtteri Bottas.
Perhaps the weekend was a little more frustrating for Ferrari who seemed to struggle only managing 4th place on the grid for Sunday’s race.
Both Red Bull’s looked very competitive all weekend long until the Q2 session when Ferrari finally pulled ahead of their pace. It wasn’t until Q2 that we saw the real pace of the Ferrari cars.
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1m32.584s | – |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1m32.660s | 0.076s |
| 3 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams/Mercedes | 1m33.024s | 0.440s |
| 4 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1m33.245s | 0.661s |
| 5 | Felipe Massa | Williams/Mercedes | 1m33.337s | 0.753s |
| 6 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1m33.347s | 0.763s |
| 7 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull/Renault | 1m33.497s | 0.913s |
| 8 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus/Mercedes | 1m33.967s | 1.383s |
| 9 | Sergio Perez | Force India/Mercedes | – | – |
| 10 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull/Renault | – | – |
| 11 | Carlos Sainz | Toro Rosso/Renault | 1m34.453s | 1.869s |
| 12 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus/Mercedes | 1m34.497s | 1.913s |
| 13 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren/Honda | 1m34.785s | 2.201s |
| 14 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India/Mercedes | 1m34.390s | 1.806s |
| 15 | Jenson Button | McLaren/Honda | 1m35.664s | 3.080s |
| 16 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber/Ferrari | 1m35.673s | 3.089s |
| 17 | Felipe Nasr | Sauber/Ferrari | 1m35.760s | 3.176s |
| 18 | Max Verstappen | Toro Rosso/Renault | – | – |
| 19 | Will Stevens | Marussia/Ferrari | 1m38.783s | 6.199s |
| 20 | Alexander Rossi | Marussia/Ferrari | 1m47.114s | 14.530s |
Has the Hamilton steamroller finally petered out??????
While I’m hoping so, probably not, but there may at least be a race. And I won’t get to see it because I’m on holiday in Aussie with no Sky -Arrrrrrrrgh!
It is on foxsports in oz :)
Thanks Ty, the place we have rented doesn’t have Fox, but I did get to see the highlights on an ABC channel.