The 2013 Formula One season has already had a dramatic beginning before a race has even started. Awful weather conditions yesterday meant that Q2 and Q3 had to be postponed until today with the race in five hours time.
In the wet, it was all about Nico Rosberg. But as the track dried out, the line-up kind of went true to practice with the Red Bulls once again at the front of the pack. Sebastian Vettel clearly hasn't had enough of rewriting history and today sees him qualify on the front row for the 50th time and on Pole for the 37th time. Friday practice saw a Red Bull one-two and that's exactly how qualifying ended up.
In qualifying was completed yesterday, there would have been little doubt that Rosberg would have got Pole and easily out-qualified Lewis Hamilton. But as the supersoft tyres came out midway through the final qualifying session, Hamilton began to find his rhythm and managed to qualify third, way ahead of the McLarens who made crucial technical errors.
The Ferraris sit fourth and fifth with Felipe Massa looking somewhat toward his best which helped him out qualify Fernando Alonso, who looked to be competing for Pole in Q2, for the third consecutive race. Rosberg could only manage sixth in the dry with Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean seventh and eighth for the Lotus. Paul Di Resta will start the race ninth in a great performance for Force India, perhaps an early indication for the midfield battle this year.
McLaren suffered in Q2 by trying out the supersoft tyres far too early and it cost Sergio Perez a chance to make it in to Q3. Button soon realised the mistake and changed back to the intermediates which did enable him to progress. But again McLaren were too quick to start on the slick tyres and Button missed on on competing with the rest and will start tenth, which perhaps the first sign of a tough season ahead for McLaren. Perez will start way down in 15th, but he started 22nd for Sauber last year and finished eighth so he's not out of it yet.
Apart from the McLarens, Valtteri Bottas, the only debutante to make it past Q1, and Jean Eric-Vergne also tried the slick tyres and both quickly made friends with the gravel off the track. Bottas will start 16th with Vergne still managing to out-qualify Daniel Ricciardo in 13th and 14th respectively for the Toro Rossos. The other two drivers to miss out on Q3 were Nico Hulkenberg in his first qualifying session in a Sauber and Adrian Sutil on his return to Force India who will start 11th and 12th respectively.
The action in Q1 yesterday was mainly cars spinning all over the place and front wings parting from the rest of the chassis'. Amongst the victims were Massa, Hamilton, Maldonado, the Saubers and the Caterhams. Pastor Maldonado was the one of the now two unknown names to fall in Q1 and will begin 17th with Esteban Gutierrez beginning his first F1 race in 18th for Sauber.
Unsurprisingly, Marussia and Caterham will be on the back two rows. The Marussias look to have improved immensely, easily out-qualifying the stricken Caterhams. Jules Bianchi out-qualified Britain's Max Chilton in 19th and 20th with Giedo Van Der Garde beating Charles Pic at the back. Pic has failed to get in to the 107% time but he should still be allowed to race later.
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