Austrian GP / Qualifying: 19th consecutive pole for Mercedes despite the spins!

The weather forecast said that there was a 30 % chance of rain during the qualifying session. The track was still damp on some areas after the rain-hit FP3 in the morning. So the weather was quite similar to ours in Finland: we are celebrating midsummer this weekend but the weather has left a lot to hope for. Sun has been hiding somewhere behind the clouds and there has been a lot of rain. Since we are lacking sunny and hot summer days I´m really enjoying all the Formula 1 action this weekend! It really makes my day!

Everyone started to Q1 on the intermediate tyres but on the drying track it was soon time for the slicks. Sauber´s Nasr and Williams´ Bottas were the first drivers to switch to slicks. In the changing conditions the Toro Rossos seemed promisingly competitive. Both Sainz and Verstappen had caught my eye already in the morning´s last free practice session. The track kept improving throughout the session and towards the end everyone came out on the supersofts. The conditions were challenging even for Mercedes: Rosberg went wide in turn 1 twice. In spite of that Rosberg was the fastest man in Q1 whilst his team-mate Hamilton couldn´t make it higher than P13 due to traffic. Sainz was 2nd, Vettel 3rd and Sainz´s team-mate Verstappen 4th. Excellent work from Toro Rosso indeed! But what was absolutely shocking and dramatic in the dying moments of Q1 was that Kimi in his Ferrari was left in P18 and couldn´t make it Q2! Kimi himself couldn´t believe his ears when he was told on the team radio that he was P18. Kimi has blamed miscommunication for this unfortunate turn: the Iceman had been told by the team that he had time for three timed laps but obviously that hadn´t been the case because the Finn had been sent out too late. I was absolutely shocked to see that Kimi was out of Q2! I´m so fed up with all these setbacks! Why can´t everything go to plan in terms of Kimi´s GP weekend?!? Once again Kimi will be facing an unnecessarily tough race tomorrow.

The beginning of Q2 saw almost everyone coming out on the supersofts. Except for Vettel, who sat out the first runs and came out not until there were only 5 minutes left in the clock. Rosberg continued his impressive pace and topped the timesheets with his team-mate second. Ferrari and Williams seemed to have a close battle with Sebastian third and Bottas 4th. Maldonado was the first man to be eliminated from Q3 whilst his team-mate Grosjean was able to make it among the top ten. Ericsson was also out of the final session whilst his Sauber team-mate Nasr proceeded into Q3. So was the case in terms of both the Toro Rosso and the Red Bull team-mates: Verstappen and Kvyat managed to make it in Q3 whilst Sainz and Ricciardo were out of the final segment. A very disappointing qualifying for especially Ricciardo who faced his first elimination from Q3 this season.

Q3 was unexpectedly eventful. Ferrari´s pace had looked very strong in all free practice sessions and I had developped an image in my head that this time Ferrari could truly challenge the Silver Arrows for pole but once again my image turned out to be nothing but a false illusion. When it came to decisive moments Mercedes seemed to find more speed. Although Sebastian was competitive it was obvious that the shootout for pole was going to be between the Mercedes team-mates. Hamilton took the provisional pole but Rosberg had clearly decided to challenge him for pole. The second runs didn´t lack drama: the rear of Hamilton´s car got away from the Briton on cold tyres into turn 1 putting him off road and out of the session! Rosberg had set fastest time for sector two and already had a promising grasp on the pole when the German made an error coming into turn 8 and went off track getting stuck in the gravel. But in spite of these errors it was another front row lock-out for the Mercedes team-mates. Impressively this was the 19th consecutive pole for Mercedes, which means that the Silver Arrows have now been on pole for an entire calendar year! How crazy is that! Sebastian made it 3rd only a tenth down on Rosberg. Massa qualified 4th whilst his Finnish team-mate Bottas was beaten to 5th by Force India´s Hulkenberg. Verstappen made only one run in the final session and the Dutchman qualified in P7, which was good work. Kvyat was 8th, Nasr 9th and Grosjean 10th (the Frenchman didn´t set a lap time).

No one knows what kind of weather to expect in tomorrow´s race. It can turn out to be anything from sun shine to pouring rain. The track is clearly demanding so I´m sure we´re going to see some mistakes as well. Ferrari´s race pace looks promising on the basis what we´ve seen in the long runs but whether Sebastian can take the battle to Mercedes for real is still kind of a question mark for me. There´re quite a few penalties, which make Kimi gain a few positions on the grid, which isn´t much of a comfort though. Both Red Bull drivers have been handed 10-place grid penalties due to taking their fifth engine of the season, exceeding the four permitted by regulations. The McLaren duo will drop 25 places on the grid, which is the cumulative result of using the fifth engine (10 places), the fifth turbocharger (5 places), the fifth MGU-K (5 places) and the fifth MGU-H (5 places). Kimi will put up a fight for sure and the Iceman has every opportunity to make it a strong points finish. Sebastian has also had some difficulties during this weekend as the German faced gearbox issues in both practice sessions on Friday but I´m counting on F15-T´s reliability in the race tomorrow. And in spite of the difficulties Sebastian always delivers when it matters the most. So I´m wishing all the very best for my heroes in tomorrow´s race!

P.S. I´m quite flattered that I have been called "the biggest Vettel fan in Finland" by the Finnish F1 commentator Oskari Saari! That happened yesterday when FP1 was live on TV. Saari tends to answer F1 fans´ questions posted on Twitter during the broadcasts and somebody had asked whether Vettel had named also his this year´s car. Saari told that he didn´t remember the name Vettel had given his SF15-T so instinctively I tweeted him that Eva was the name of Sebastian´s car. Then Saari commented that no wonder certain Iina Huhmarniemi knew the name of the car as she might be the biggest Vettel fan in Finland and he mentioned my blog, too. That was a very unexpected moment but what an honour to be called the biggest Vettel fan in Finland! :D

...and to prove a point I have to confess that there has been one more Vettel cake! I baked this for my colleagues at the end of May when it was my last day in that work place as I will switch pre-schools next August!

Canadian GP: Hamilton lead the race from start to finish!

The Canadian GP took place already a week ago but I haven´t had a proper chance to sit down and update my blog since I´ve been travelling around Finland (I made a quick visit in Norway as well) on a camper with my family. We arrived home yesterday evening so now I finally have time to write down a few words on last Sunday´s race!

There have been some really colourful and exciting races in Montreal in recent years but this year´s GP didn´t turn out to be as eventful as I had been hoping for. There wasn´t any huge drama at the start: Hamilton kept his lead, Rosberg maintained his 2nd place although Kimi tried to get past the German in turn one. Bottas in his Williams managed to keep his 4th place although Grosjean in his Lotus gave the Finn some pressure from behind. By lap 3 Sebastian had already jumped 4 positions making his way in P14. Also Massa in his FW37 had jumped two places and the Brazilian was ahead of Sebastian in P13. It seemed that Kimi could match Rosberg´s pace and the Iceman could stay within DRS distance from Rosberg.

Sebastian pitted already on lap 8 and his pit stop didn´t unfortunately go to plan but was delayed by several seconds. Sebastian was dropped down to P20 when he rejoined the track! At that point it definitely didn´t look good for the German Ferrari ace! Little by little the gaps between the top four started to grow: Hamilton in the lead had already a 3,5-second gap over his team-mate. Kimi was already four seconds off Rosberg and Bottas some three seconds behind Räikkönen. At this point of the race Sebastian seemed to be in trouble. Pace didn´t seem to be there at all!

The super soft tyres seemed to last excellently and unexpectedly and it started to look likely that it was going to be a 1-stop race for the most drivers. Kimi pitted on lap 27 and everything went well -until the Finn rejoined the track. Right after the pit stop there was drama for Kimi at the hair pin: Kimi suddenly span and lost over 10 seconds! It seemed that Kimi suddenly lost the control of his car and there wasn´t anything the Iceman could have done to avoid the incident. Right after the spin Kimi reported on the team radio that an exactly similar incident had happened to him in Canada last year! It had probably something to do with the engine mapping but it hasn´t been confirmed for sure yet. Williams responded to this immediately and called Bottas in on the following lap. Bottas managed to rejoin the track ahead of Kimi in P3! What a devastating moment for Kimi, he lost the 3rd place without his own fault! With wrong engine mapping no one could have controlled the car in the similar situation, that´s what I believe. I was so gutted that Kimi lost the third place right when the weekend had gone to plan so far!

Hamilton pitted not until on lap 30 and his team-mate Rosberg a lap later and the situation in the lead stayed unchanged. On lap 41 Kimi was called in for his second pit stop and a fresh set of super soft tyres. After the stop the Iceman was 18 seconds behind his countryman Bottas in P4. Of course I was hoping that Kimi could catch Bottas by the end of the race but I had my doubts whether that was actually possible. Kimi was, however, setting stunning lap times and decreasing the gap to Bottas lap by lap. Kimi´s team-mate Sebastian was fighting with Force India´s Hulkenberg and the Germans ended up touching each other.

With 14 laps to go Sebastian made a classy overtaking move on Lotus´s Maldonado and Sebastian was already 5th in the race! That was an impressive job from Sebastian, who had started to the race at the very back of the grid. In the lead there was no real fight for the win: Rosberg had closed the gap to Hamilton into 1,5 seconds but there was no way Rosberg could really have challenged his team-mate for the lead. Sorry to say this but in my opinion it was another dull 1-2 for the Mercedes team-mates! Bottas made it on the podium for the first time this year and Kimi had to settle for P4. Sebastian finished 5th, Massa 6th, Maldonado 7th, Hulkenberg 8th, Kvyat 9th and Grosjean 10th.

Next week it´s time for the Austrian GP at Red Bull Ring. I would definitely like to see Ferrari taking the fight to Mercedes there! The season is starting to get boring if no one is able to challenge the Silver Arrows for wins. But I strongly believe in the Ferrari team-mates. Kimi and Sebastian are definitely the guys, who can get the most out of the SF15-T! Roll on Austria!

Canadian GP / Qualifying: A catastrophic qualifying for Vettel!

At the moment I'm traveling around Finland on a camper with my family. Yesterday we were staying at the sea side in Kalajoki. We have a laptop wit us on the camper so I could watch the qualifying. It was raining heavily last night but I didn't mind as the quali was on.


McLaren's Jenson Button was unable to participate in the qualifying as his MP4-30 had grinded to halt in FP3 and needed a fresh Honda motor. Vettel in his Ferrari faced technical worries right away in Q1. When there were 5 minutes in the clock the German still hadn't been able to set a lap time. It was a MGU-H issue. Sebastian tried everything he could to set a competitive lap time at the end of the first segment but there was nothing Sebastian could do and he had to settle for the very disappointing P16! Both Finns, Räikkönen and Bottas made their first runs on the yellow-marked soft tyres and they both sat out the second runs while everyone except the Mercedes drivers came out on the supersofts. Both Lotus drivers seemed to be on top form and Grosjean made it in P1 on the supersofts. Rosberg and Hamilton were separated only by two thousandths of a second Rosberg having the upper hand. Also Massa at the wheel of his Williams faced power issues and the Brazilian was left in disappointing P17. So two big names were eliminated already in the first segment.


Kimi came right out when Q2 got underway. Finally it seemed that Kimi had been able to put every piece of the puzzle together and the Iceman was clearly flying! The Finn made it on top of the timesheets until the Mercedes drivers showed up on track. They were undercutting the red car by almost a second! Once again it was extremely tight between the Mercedes team-mates as there were only 12 thousandths of a second splitting those two this time in Hamilton's favor. Grosjean kept up his excellent work and the Frenchman was 3rd fastest in the second session. Force India's pace seemed promising as well as both Hulkenberg and Perez made it among the ten fastest. The Toro Rosso duo Sainz and Verstappen on the other hand were the first ones to be knocked out of the decisive final session. Alonso and both Saubers were out as well.


Kimi came out at the very beginning of the last session and the Iceman's first attempt was impressive. Hamilton's pace, however, was in a class of its own! The Briton took the provisional pole by 7 tenths to Kimi! This time not even Rosberg could match his team-mate's pace but ended up 3 tenths down on Hamilton. Kimi managed to improve his lap time on his second run but the Finn was still third in the standings. The Mercedes duo was unable to improve their lap times on their second runs so it was the 44th career pole for Lewis Hamilton! It was such a frustrating P2 for Rosberg. Bottas drove brilliantly as well a d the Finn qualified 4th. The Lotus duo Grosjean and Maldonado were stunning 5th and 6th. Hulkenberg qualified 7th, Kvyat 8th, Ricciardo 9th and Perez 10th.


Verstappen has been handed two penalties: the Dutch rookie got a 5-place grid penalty due to his crash with Grosjean in Monaco. He faced another 10-place grid drop due to taking his 5th engine in Canada. With Verstappen qualifying too low to take the full 15-place drop, he also field it is fot up a compensatory 10-second stop-go penalty for the race and will thud start at the rear of the field. And it also turned out that the technical worries were just a start of bad luck for Sebastian: The German was also handed a 5-place grid penalty for a red flag infraction in FP3. So the rear of the field it is for Sebastian as well!


Everything looks perfect for Kimi to challenge the Mercedes drivers for the top step of the podium today. And I'm sure Sebastian will fight like a wild animal to make his way through the field! I'm now in Lapland and I'll be watching the race up in the northern Finland in Levi!

Monaco GP: Against all odds Rosberg made it the third win in-a-row in Monaco!

Just in the morning I wrote that I had a strong hunch that Hamilton was going to drive from pole to victory today. That, however, wasn´t exactly what happened on the streets of the Principality today! Hamilton had every reason to win the race though. The Briton took a strong start and maintained his lead. Sebastian made strong effort to get past Rosberg going into turn one but the German Mercedes pilot wasn´t going to surrender so Sebastian had to settle for third. Kvyat in his Red Bull took an impressive start and made his way past his team-mate Ricciardo. Kimi´s start was decent as well but all the Iceman could do was to keep his 6th place. Already on the second lap Alonso in his McLaren collided with Force India´s Hulkenberg causing the German to hit the barrier. Hulkenberg had a front wing damage and he had to pit for a new front wing. A few laps later Alonso was given a 5-second time penalty for causing the collision.

Soon it became obvious that Rosberg couldn´t quite match Hamilton´s pace and in no time there was a several-second gap between the Mercedes team-mates. Further down in the back Verstappen´s driving caught my eye. Maldonado had some brake issues in his E23 and Verstappen didn´t hesitate to overtake the Venezuelan making his way up to P8. Maldonado was the first one to retire from the race only a couple of laps later. But despite Maldonado´s difficulties the overtaking move was impressive.

Little by little Kimi managed to close the gap to Ricciardo in P5. When Kvyat pitted for a fresh set of prime tyres, Kimi jumped 5th. The Iceman was already within DRS distance from the Australian and tried to put up a fight. At the same time on lap 30 Verstappen made his first and only pit stop. Everything didn´t go to plan: there were difficulties with getting one of the rear tyres attached. Max dropped down to P13 behind Bottas when he rejoined the track. Such a pity! Though I knew there were more overtaking moves to come ;)

Ricciardo pitted one lap before Kimi did and Kimi benefitted from this strategy making his way ahead of Ricciardo in P5! In terms of the top three the order remained unchanged after the first pit stops: Hamilton had a firm lead, Rosberg was second and Sebastian third. Although Nico seemed to be within Sebastian´s reach there were minimal chances to overtake. I was so sure Hamilton was going to cruise to the victory! On lap 43 Alonso had to retire due to a technical failure, which was actually no surprise.

Not everyone was on a 1-stop strategy. Verstappen in his Toro Rosso pitted for second time on lap 47. Some 10 laps later we saw some brilliant overtaking moves from this highly talented Dutchman. Sebastian in P3 was lapping cars and Verstappen came up with clever strategy: he drove as close to Sebastian as he could and when Bottas was shown blue flags and the Finn had to slow down to let Sebastian past, Verstappen benefitted from the situation by attacking Bottas right after Sebastian. This was an absolutely genius move, which Verstappen repeated a moment later. This young man really knew how to put up an entertaining show! On lap 61 Verstappen tried to use this same strategy to get past Grosjean in P10 but Grosjean had been adviced about Verstappen´s move on the team radio and it didn´t work out for the third time. With 14 more laps to go Verstappen tried to make his way past Grosjean but the attempt lead into a collision and Verstappen crashed into the barrier nose first in high speed. Luckily Verstappen got away with no injuries but what a shame that he couldn´t finish the race! I´m sure he would have finished in the points!

Safety car was deploeyd due to Verstappen´s crash. The race took a strange turn as Hamilton was called to the pits when safety car came out. At that point Hamilton had about a 19-second lead over his team-mate but it turned out not to be enough when Hamilton rejoined the track: the Briton dropped down to P3! Rosberg took the lead clearly but for a moment it was unclear whether Sebastian had been ahead of Hamilton when crossing the white line. But Sebastian had been an inch ahead and the second place was his! Hamilton must have been devastated when the reality hit him in the race! It turned out to be a mistake made by the team: they had calculated the gap between Hamilton and Rosberg wrong... After the re-start Hamilton tried everything to make his way past Sebastian but not even the fresh set of option tyres helped him succeed in that! Hamilton had dominated the race from the very start but during the safety car episode his convincing lead turned into disappointing P3.

Ricciardo had also pitted during the safety car and Kimi in P5 lost the position to the Australian on the closing laps. Ricciardo even hit Kimi´s car when overtaking the Iceman but the collision caused no further action by the stewards. We saw team orders from Red Bull today: Kvyat let his team-mate Ricciardo past because the Australian was much quicker on the new super soft tyres and the team thought Ricciardo could have had a chance to attack on Hamilton and Vettel. However, by the final lap of the race Ricciardo hadn´t been able to make an overtaking move so the team told him to give his position back to Kvyat, which seemed like a fair move. So Rosberg took his third win in-a-row on the streets of Monte Carlo in a very lucky way! Sebastian finished second and Hamilton was absolutely devastated having to settle for third. Kvyat finished 4th, Ricciardo 5th, Kimi 6th, Perez 7th, Button scored his first points for McLaren Honda by finishing 8th, Nasr 9th and Sainz 10th. Bottas in his Williams was left out of points in P14 so it was an utterly poor race for Williams.

The beginning of the race didn´t seem too exciting but the turn at the end caught me by surprise! I still consider it unbelievable that Hamilton didn´t win the race. In terms of the championship the result today really spices things up: there´s only a 10-point gap between the Mercedes team-mates in favor of Hamilton. Some people say there isn´t such thing as luck in Formula 1 but even Nico himself admitted that he got really lucky today. Sebastian was clearly very happy about his second place. So was I! :D Sebastian seems so comfortable in the SF15-T, I know he´ll take the struggle to Mercedes this year. In terms of Kimi I really hope that in Canada there´ll finally be the long-awaited problem-free weekend for the Iceman!

Monaco GP / Qualifying: Long-awaited first-ever pole in Monte Carlo for Hamilton!

I was certainly looking forward to a thrilling qualifying as Mercedes had been beaten to the fastest time by Ferrari in FP3. And qualifying definitely threw up several surprises. Like expected Mercedes and Ferrari didn't have to run on the supersofts in Q1. Still the Mercedes duo were the fastest men on track with Rosberg having the upper hand on his home streets. The Ferrari duo Vettel and Räikkönen sat out the second runs but this time this risky tactics paid off. All the others made their second runs on the supersofts. One of the surprises was to see Toro Rosso's Verstappen making it as high as 3rd in Q1! Toro Rosso's pace had looked good already in the free practice sessions. Both Sauber and Marussia drivers were out of Q2 but the highest profile casualty in Q1 was Valtteri Bottas, who struggled with heavy understeering issues.

Q2 saw everyone out on the red-marked super soft tyres. Alonso in his McLaren was completely out of luck in the second session gliding to a halt on the exit to Sainte Devote when his MP4-30 switched itself off. His team-mate Button on the other hand had promising pace but couldn't quite make it into the final session. Rosberg went wide going into turn one on his second attempt triggering yellow flags, which ruined Button's last flying lap. Rosberg and Hamilton were once again topping the timesheets followed by Vettel and Räikkönen. Grosjean in his E23 was the first man to miss out on Q3. The Frenchman has also been handed a 5-place grid penalty due to a gearbox change so he'll drop down to P16. Button, Hulkenberg and Massa were also dumped out in Q2. Not a very flattering moment for the Williams team: for the first time this year Williams weren't represented in the pole shootout!

By the start of Q3 there was a slight chance of rain so everyone rushed out when the final and decisive session got underway. Everyone else except the Toro Rosso duo were on a new set of super soft tyres. Just as it appeared Rosberg had the upper hand, the Mercedes team-mates' fortunes turned again. Hamilton took the provisional pole. After the first attempts Kimi was only down in 9th place! Kimi hadn't had a problem-free weekend this time, either. The Iceman had walloped the wall at Sainte Devote and punctured a tyre in FP3. In Q3 the Finn had again touched the wall on his first run. Kimi had complained of oversteering. Perez in his Force India had to sit out the second runs because he had run out of tyres. Rosberg blew his final effort by locking up heavily once again at Ste Devote. So Hamilton grabbed the long-awaited first-ever pole in Monte Carlo! Rosberg was three tenths off his team-mate's pace. In spite of the promising pace in FP3 Sebastian had no chance to challenge the Mercedes duo in the qualifying. The German had to settle for third on the grid. Red Bull were back on form on the streets of the Principality and Ricciardo and Kvyat were very evenly matched. Ricciardo qualified 4th and Kvyat 5th ahead of the Ferrari of Kimi Räikkönen in P6. Sebastian and Kimi were separated by 6 tenths of a second, which caught me by surprise. Perez qualified 7th, Sainz 8th, Maldonado 9th and Verstappen was left in P10. Sainz, however, has to start to the race from the pit lane because the Spaniard failed to stop at the FIA weighbridge in Q1.

The race will get underway in a few hours' time. I'm afraid the win will be firmly within Hamilton's grasp if only the Briton doesn't fail at the start. Monaco is known for minimal chances for overtaking so strategy plays a decisive role. I'd be absolutely delighted if Sebastian could split the Mercedes at the end of the race! Kimi on the other hand must succeed at the start. The Iceman has to make his way past both Red Bulls if he wants to take part in the battle for the podium places! It has proved to be very difficult for Kimi to put together a problem-free weekend this season but luckily the Iceman tends to be on fire when the race day arrives. I'm sure Kimi will offer us an awesome show also today! I have a hunch that Rosberg will be in trouble with his team-mate and that there will be no stopping Hamilton from winning today.

Spanish GP: Rosberg took win as my hunch said!

For me Spanish GP differs from all the other grands prix because Circuit de Catalunya brings back so many memories. It was only three months ago when I spent three awesome days beside the track watching the last pre-season test session live! It´s different to watch the action on that particular track on TV as I look at the corners and think "Yes, that´s the place where I went to on my first day and took those great photos" and so on. At the end of the day it´s so different to actually see all those cars drive live in front of your very eyes! Something that you´ll never forget.

The start was absolutely breathtaking. Rosberg stormed from pole to lead but Sebastian managed to make his way past Hamilton, whose start was anything but perfect. Kimi in P7 took an aggressive start as well and the Iceman passed both Toro Rosso drivers jumping 5th right behind Bottas in the FW37. My prediction about Toro Rosso´s race pace soon turned out to be true: there was no chance either Sainz or Verstappen could match Kimi´s pace. Also Massa in the Williams had an easy task to overtake the Toro Rossos one by one.

Rosberg in the lead had a safe 3-second gap to Sebastian but Hamilton on the other hand was right at Sebastian´s tail. But thanks to Ferrari´s excellent straight-line speed the Briton had no real chance to overtake the German even if he was within DRS distance. Hamilton was the first top driver to pit on lap 14. Everything didn´t, however, go to plan during the pit stop: there were difficulties to get the Briton´s rear left tyre attached, which cost several extra seconds. When Sebastian pitted a lap later he managed to rejoin the track ahead of Hamilton.

After the first pit stops the order remained unchanged: Rosberg was leading the race with Sebastian 2nd, Hamilton 3rd, Bottas 4th and Kimi 5th. Kimi´s tyre choice differed from that of his rivals: Kimi opted for a fresh set of hard tyres for his second stint whilst all the other top drivers had opted for another set of option tyres.

In the midfield Pastor Maldonado´s promising race was ruined due to a rear wing failure. During the Venezuelan´s pit stop the mechanics detached a big part of his rear wing but against all odds the rear wing didn´t fly off at any part of the race. McLaren´s Alonso on the other hand suffered from brake problems and the Spaniard was about to hit one of the mechanics in the pits as he was unable to stop his car in time. Luckily no one got hurt!

Hamilton made his second pit stop a lot earlier than his rivals, which meant the Briton had a different strategy: he was on a 3-stop strategy. In spite of the varying strategies and tyre choices the Spanish GP evolved as quite a boring race. Sebastian lost his 2nd place to Hamilton during his second and last pit stop and after that the pecking order was quite clear: Rosberg had over a 10-second lead over his team-mate and Sebastian in P3 had a clear gap over Bottas in P4. Luckily Kimi offered the spectators some entertainment after his second pit stop. The Iceman had rejoined the track about 10 seconds behind Massa in his Williams but on the new set of medium tyres Kimi was absolutely flying and closing the gap to Massa massively fast. And when Kimi had caught Massa up he didn´t hesitate to overtake the Brasilian! After getting past Massa Kimi started to chase Bottas, who was some 8 seconds ahead of his countryman.

With less than 10 laps to go Kimi was right at Bottas´s tail! But Williams didn´t turn out to be an easy car to overtake. In the previous race Valtteri had done excellent job by holding back Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari and this time there was the other Ferrari lurking from Valtteri´s mirrors. And even if Kimi got within DRS distance he had no chance to overtake his compatriot. Williams could easily match Ferrari´s straigh-line speed.

So once again it was a very predicted 1-2 for Mercedes. The only refreshing thing about this was the fact that Nico Rosberg took his first win of the season (like my hunch said) and decreased the gap to Hamilton into 20 points in the championship standings. Sebastian finished 3rd ahead of Bottas in P4 and Kimi in P5. Massa finished 6th, Ricciardo 7th, Grosjean 8th, Sainz 9th and Kvyat 10th. Verstappen was left out of points in P11. I was very happy about Sebastian´s third place but all in all this was such a boring race as the Mercedes duo were so much quicker than all the rest. Hopefully the Monaco GP will be a different story. There in the narrow streets of Monaco it´ll be all about a great qualifying result!

Spanish GP / Qualifying: Rosberg grabbed his first pole of 2015!

Yesterday was an exceptional Saturday for me as I was unable to watch the qualifying live on TV. But there was a zumba marathon event taking place in the town and since there have been no such events for a long time I really wanted to attend. I took close care that I didn´t check my Facebook or Twitter so I didn´t get to know who had taken pole until I watched the qualifying later on in the evening.

The Force Indias, the Saubers and the Marussias started to Q1 on the softer compound of the Pirelli tyres whilst the top teams like Mercedes, Ferrari and Williams made their first runs on the hard tyres. The Mercedes duo Hamilton and Rosberg and Vettel in the Ferrari were the only drivers not having to use the option tyres in the first session. Those three made their second runs also on the orange-marked hard tyres. Kimi on the other hand was in P11 after his first flying lap so the Iceman had to use a set of option tyres on his second run. Hamilton and Rosberg topped the time sheets in spite of their tyre choice. What caught my eye was the fact that Sebastian was a second off Hamilton´s pace in spite of the fact that they had set their times on the same rubber! Ericsson in the Sauber was the first man to miss out on Q2. Both Force Indias and Marussias were also out of the second phase.

After Q1 the ball was in Rosberg´s court. After the first attempts the top five drivers were Rosberg, Hamilton, Räikkönen, Vettel and Bottas. Rosberg had clearly found his self-confidence again as the German had a 6-tenth margin over his team-mate! The top five stayed in their pit garages as the rest of the field headed out for their second runs. The top three remained the same but Massa in the Williams made 4th. The Toro Rosso rookies Verstappen and Sainz made remarkable job and definitely stood out of the pack: Verstappen made P7 and Sainz P8 whilst the Red Bull duo was left in 9th and 10th places. Both Lotus drivers were out of Q3, so were the re-liveried McLarens of Alonso and Button.

The decisive final session involved five top teams: Mercedes, Ferrari, Williams, Toro Rosso and Red Bull. Kimi in his SF15-T and Verstappen in the Toro Rosso were the only drivers to make their first run on the used set of option tyres. Rosberg claimed provisional pole by a 3-tenth margin over his team-mate. Massa, Sainz and the Red Bull duo Kvyat and Ricciardo settled for one attempt only. Rosberg maintained his edge over his team-mate and grabbed his first pole of 2015 by a quarter of a second. The Ferrari team-mates enjoyed differing fortunes: the German was third but the Finn was bumped down to 7th. The team ran Sebastian with the new configuration of the aero package and Kimi with the old. Bottas at the wheel of his FW37 made excellent job by making it P4. Even both Toro Rossos made it ahead of Kimi in the Ferrari with Sainz in P5 and Verstappen in P6! Toro Rosso´s single-lap pace was impressive and both drivers delivered when it mattered. Who says Verstappen is too young for F1? The Dutchman has definitely justified his place in F1 by his performance. Kvyat had to settle for P8, Massa qualified disappointing P9 and Kvyat´s team-mate Ricciardo was left 10th.

I don´t know what happened to Kimi in the final session. In Q2 the Iceman had still been ahead of his team-mate but at the end of Q3 Kimi was a second slower than his team-mate Sebastian! Kimi has been struggling with grip all weekend and the upgrades haven´t turned out to be a clear advantage in terms of the car´s performance. P7 is definitely a difficult place to start to the race today as Circuit de Catalunya isn´t known for lots of chances for overtaking. But Ferrari have strong race pace, that´s for sure. Williams have been struggling with tyre management so in that sense Ferrari have an advantage over Williams. And in spite of the glorious single-lap pace I don´t expect Toro Rosso to be that strong in the race. Kimi just have to take a phenomenal start and make his way past the Toro Rossos and Bottas on the opening lap! Which of course is more easily said than done!

I´m afraid Mercedes are so quick that they will disappear in the horizon in no time unless they face some technical issues. Ferrari have an advantage over Mercedes in terms of tyre degradation but it won´t help if the Mercedes are a second per lap quicker than the Ferraris... But I´m definitely looking forward to a thrilling fight! I have a hunch that Rosberg will win today.

P.S. Right before the start of the race I heard Kimi had had problems with one of the tyre heating blankets in the qualifying. The issue had ruined Kimi´s set of new option tyres, which meant that Kimi had to make his last attempt in Q3 on a used set of medium tyres! No wonder the Finn ended up in P7! What a shame! And not Kimi´s fault in any way! So gutted for Kimi!