Friday, March 27, 2009

Formula 1 - practice 1 & 2

Combined times from sessions 1 & 2 result in a grid looking like this:~

1 Rosberg - Williams/Toyota
2 Nakajima - Williams/Toyota
3 Barrichello - Brawn/Mercedes
4 Raikkonen - Ferrari
5 Button - Brawn/Mercedes
6 Glock - Toyota
7 Trulli - Toyota
8 Massa - Ferrari
9 Sutil - Force India/Mercedes
10 Kovalainen - McLaren/Mercedes
11 Alonso - Renault
12 Webber - Red Bull/Renault
13 Heidfeld - BMW Sauber
14 Fisichella - Force India/Mercedes
15 Kubica - BMW Sauber
16 Hamilton - McLaren/Mercedes
17 Buemi - Toro Rosso/Ferrari
18 Bourdais - Toro Rosso/Ferrari
19 Piquet - Renault
20 Vettel - Red Bull/Renault
Tomorrow's qualifying session and Sunday's race are (naturally) when the true performance of each car and driver is fully shown but things are not looking very good for McLaren or BMW. The same can not be said about Brawn GP which has both cars in the top 5 - not bad for a new team! BMW had, arguably, a more shocking day than McLaren with neither car breaking into the top 10. Both team's drivers have been complaining about a general lack of grip, with tyre wear also (seemingly) being a concerning factor for virtually all teams at Melbourne.
Qualifying looks set to be very, very interesting and possibly quite frantic too!