Did I have any personal predictions before the inaugural Indian GP? Of course I had one: Super Sebastian was the one I wanted to be on pole! This time I got what I was hoping for: 13th pole of the season for Super Seb! Absolutely impressive and brilliant work! But of course, what else would you have expected from a back-to-back world champion...?
This was the very first qualifying at the brand new Buddh International Circuit which seemed to be very enjoyable and a lot of fun to drive at! A bit dusty and tricky indeed but it was nice to see that all the drivers enjoyed the new challenges. The qualifying itself held no real surprises. A tiny surprise was that it was Sauber´s Kobayashi who didn´t make his way through Q2 instead of either of the Williams drivers. Toro Rosso showed very competitive pace today and both Alguersuari and Buemi were able to reach Q3.
The new venue seemed to suit Mercedes GP on the basis what we saw in free practices so it was slightly disappointing to see Schumi not qualifying in the top 10! And as I predicted before Q3 there were once again three drivers who didn´t set any time during the final session of the qualifying: Sutil in his Force India and both Toro Rosso drivers.
There was no stopping Sebastian Vettel in his RB7! After the first attempts he topped the standings but the margin to Hamilton who was 2nd was subtle indeed. At the end of Q3 Massa broke the front-right suspension in his car and ended up to the barriers which caused yellow flags. That ruined everyone else´s second run except Vettel´s who was able to improve his lap time by a few tenths of a second! So there´s Super Sebastian on pole (he´s definitely close to break Mansell´s record of pole positions during one season...), Hamilton 2nd, Webber 3rd and Alonso 4th followed by Button and Massa. Hamilton, however, will be dropped to 5th place due to ignoring yellow flags during the free practice on Friday.
There has been a lot of talk about Red Bull using team orders at the race tomorrow. Due to Hamilton´s penalty Webber will start to the race from the 2nd spot right behind his team-mate Vettel. Red Bull´s team principal Horner has stated that the team will do everything that Webber would secure the 2nd place in the championship standings, even by making Vettel the number two driver inside the team for the rest of the season... Webber, however, has said that he doesn´t want Vettel to give away positions in order to help him secure the second place. But for sure it´s utterly interesting to see what happens at tomorrow´s race... If Vettel is leading the race on the closing laps and Webber is behind him, will the team ask Vettel to give the lead to his team-mate? It wouldn´t feel right and I´m sure it wouldn´t feel right to Webber either. It would be like a false victory... And very artificial... I mean if you think how superior Vettel has been compared to his team-mate this season a decision like that would be hard to accept. So I hope we´ll see an intense fight and a true victory tomorrow!
Before I finish this blog post I have to write a few words about Lewis Hamilton. I haven´t ever been much of a fan of him. At first I considered the talented Briton absolutely annoying when he came to Formula 1 because he seemed so arrogant (I don´t know if he really was but that was the image I got of him...). During this season I´ve had contradictory thoughts about him. He´s clearly highly talented but he has made a lot of stupid mistakes this year. On the other hand though I´ve started to like his aggressive driving style although it often leads to silly mistakes. But the way he races with his whole heart, that´s highly admirable in my opinion. And in the beginning of his F1 career I didn´t respect Hamilton so much because I thought that he has always got everything "on a gold plate" and he hasn´t needed to fight his way through to F1... But after winning the championship he has had his share of difficulties and he has developped a lot since winning the title. And he definitely hasn´t got it easy at the moment: setbacks on the track, splitting up with his girlfriend... I can´t help feeling compassion for him! I do want Vettel to win tomorrow but I´d be glad to see Hamilton succeeding for a change :)
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