A washout is what most fans would’ve expected the 2012 British Grand Prix Qualifying to be. However, all we did have a rain delay of more than an hour before the session resumed. I am traveling and at Silverstone and hence this will be a brief post.
Alonso clinched Ferrari’s first pole since Singapore 2010 yesterday with a gutsy drive and he increasingly is looking like he’s pulled slightly ahead of the pack of front running drivers. If the weather stays, he does look like the driver to beat on Race Day. Ironically, it didn’t look like Ferrari and Alonso would even make it into Q3, after a spin and wrong tyre option almost had them eliminated.
Schumacher brought his Mercedes AMG car home in 3rd place, three tenths behind Webber. The session was a drying one which meant that the driver clocking his time at the very last minute would stand to be benefit. Raikkonen’s non-KERS Lotus managed a 6th place and hopefully his issues will be sorted in time for the race today.
The biggest loser in this session was Jenson Button who was unable to put in a time to get him into Q2. One does wonder if the former World Champion will ever get over his tyre issues this season! For the Indian Formula1 fans, Karthikeyan and his HRT did qualify ahead of Pic’s Marussia. And also, Petrov managed the rare feat of qualifying ahead of his team-mate Kovalainen.
Even the wet session saw the mid-field and top teams be separated by a second at best and this would hopefully indicate a close race today as well. The forecast does indicate rain and if it does, the race will indeed be a lottery. It will also be interesting to see if teams and drivers have enough intermediate tyres at their disposal since there has been literally no dry running this weekend in Silverstone.
