When I opened my eyes this morning at 6 am I had no clue what a qualifying Saturday I had woken up to! Instantly after turning on the TV I heard some breaking news: it had been confirmed that Sebastian Vettel will leave Red Bull at the end of the season! And team principal Christian Horner had already slipped out that Vettel was heading for Ferrari! My tiredness was gone in a heart beat and I couldn´t believe what I was hearing! This news took many people by surprise -including me. I thought there was perfect harmony inside the Red Bull team and Sebastian was completely happy there although this has been an extremely tough season with a lot of setbacks for the German. I was convinced Sebastian was going to stay at Red Bull as he still had one more year in his contract. But Sebastian had activated a break clause in his contract and according to his own words he isn´t leaving the team because of the tough season or because he would be running away from his team-mate Ricciardo who has been outperforming him in most races this year.
Sebastian has been part of the Red Bull family for 15 years, that´s a very long time. Sebastian has already won 4 consecutive world championship crowns at Red Bull and 4 constructors´ titles as well. What else is there to achieve at one team? I understand well it´s time for a new challenge although it´s always a risk to leave a team that is the reigning world champion! But when one door closes another one opens. The decision to leave must have been an awfully difficult one to make but at the end of the day you have to follow what your heart tells you. Obviously Ferrari haven´t confirmed Sebastian´s move to the Italian-based squad yet but it´s only a matter of time. And if I´m asked, Ferrari will have the best line-up ever next year in Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen! That´s definitely an ultimate dream team -at least for me. Those two are also good friends so I´m sure they´ll have a lot of fun driving for Ferrari next year! Right after announcing Sebastian´s departure from the team Red Bull also confirmed that Toro Rosso´s Daniil Kvyat will replace Sebastian in the main team next year.
After news like these it was a bit difficult to concentrate on the qualifying which was once again ultimate dominance by the Mercedes duo. Q1 held no surprises. Hamilton set the fastest lap time with Rosberg right behind him. Bottas in his Williams was "the best of the rest" with Massa in the other Williams in P4. The Red Bulls made only one run in the first session on the hard-compound Pirellis and Sebastian was only 14th fastest. In addition to the midfield teams also Kimi had to rely on the white-marked medium tyres to make his way through into Q2. Both Lotuses were out of Q2 as well as the backmarkers of Marussia and Caterham.
The Mercedes dominance continued in the second session, except the fact that this time Rosberg was topping the time sheets. The pecking order seemed clear: Mercedes dominated in a superior way and Williams had the second fastest car. Kimi was only able to make it in P9 and Sebastian in P10. What was even more concerning was the fact that Kimi was 1,1 seconds slower than his team-mate Alonso! Not a good sign at all. Once again also Ricciardo was quicker than Sebastian... It hurts every time. Excluded from the final and decisive session were both Toro Rossos, both Force Indias and both Sauber drivers.
The Mercedes duo were light years ahead of the opposition so there was actually no excitement about which team was going to conquer the front row. Rosberg had the upper hand on his team-mate today and clinched the pole by 0,2- second margin over his team-mate Hamilton. Bottas drove a superb qualifying again and the Finn made it in P3 (0,6 seconds off Rosberg), which was the absolute maximum the Finnish Williams driver could achieve today. Bottas´ team-mate Massa completed the second row. Thus the grid for the Japanese GP will line up: Alonso 5th, Ricciardo 6th, Magnussen 7th, Button 8th, Vettel 9th and Räikkönen 10th. Kimi was the only driver to make only one attempt in Q3. It was crushing to see how slow Kimi was compared to Alonso today: over a second off the Spaniard´s pace! Once again Kimi had faced engine related technical issues in the final free practice session and the Finn hadn´t been able to finish the set-up work he needed to make his F14T perform competitively on the track.
What caught my eye as well was the fact that Sebastian was 1,9 seconds slower than polesitter Rosberg! That´s almost 2 seconds! In Singapore Red Bull had almost been able to challenge the Mercs and now Sebastian was 2 seconds off the pace (Ricciardo 1,5 seconds)! Heavy rain is predicted for Suzuka tomorrow so I thought Red Bull had chosen a wet-race set-up for their cars, which cost them time in the qualifying. I hope that´s the case and everything will turn well in tomorrow´s race. A typhoon is predicted to hit the area tomorrow so it´s interesting to see if they can actually race tomorrow. There were some talks about advancing the race due to the typhoon but it has been confirmed that the race will start as planned in the first place. I do hope there won´t be pouring rain (like it tends to be in Japan) and the race can be driven. No guarantees about that though.
Grid penalties for taking the 6th engine of the season have started to emerge: Toro Rosso´s Vergne in P11 will be dropped back to P21 and Lotus´ Maldonado will start to the race from the back of the grid (the Venezuelan qualified 17th so he will drop 5 places in Japan with the remainder of the 10-place penalty carrying over into Russia next weekend). I do hope Red Bull have the perfect wet-race set-up and Sebastian will have a strong race. And this goes for Kimi, too!
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