Saturday, March 29, 2014

Lewis Hamilton scores Pole in Malaysia

Hamilton scores pole in a wet Malaysian grand Prix


As was expected, it rained in Sepang during the Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying. And that helped in reducing the times and brining the competitors much closer to each other. Despite that, Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes scored the pole with a time of 1’59.431. This was his second pole in as many races in the 2014 formula 1 season. However, unlike the previous race where he had to retire, he would be hoping to win.

However, Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull came second. He was 0.055 seconds off Hamilton’s time.

Hamilton’s team-mate Nico Rosberg came third with a time of 2’00.050 seconds. So Hamilton and Vettel were the only two drivers who were below the 2 mins barrier.

Fernando Alonso of Ferrari came in 4th and will start along side Rosberg in the second row. Alonso scored 2’00.175

Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull who was disqualified in the previous race due to a fuel flow issue, qualified in P5 with a time of 2’00.541. Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari qualified P6 with a time of 2’01.218.

Nico Hulkenberb of Force India qualified at P7 with a time of 2’01.712. However, his teammate Sergio Perez could only qualify at P14.

Kevin Magnussen of McLaren came in 8th with a time of 2’02.213. Jean-Eric Vergne of Toro Rosso scored the P9 position with a time of 2’03.078.

Jenson Button of McLaren who had gambled on intermediate tyres, couldn’t cope up when the rain increased and came up 10th in the top ten shoot out in Q3 with a time of 2’04.053.

Torro Rosso’s new hire Kvyat came in 11th, followed by Esteban Gutierrez of Sauber at 12th. Felipe Massa of Williams qualified at 13th followed by Sergio Perez of Force India at P14. Valtteri Bottas of Williams came in at P15.

The lotus duo of Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado qualified at P16 and P17 showing how far the Lotus has fallen this season. Adrian Sutil of Sauber was P18, followed by the regular backbenchers Jules Bianchi of Marussia at P19, Kamui Kobayashi of Caterham at P20, Max Chilton of Marussia at P21 and Marcus Ericsson of Caterham at P22.

Maldonado and Sutil might be feeling bad for being caught out in Q1 as Ericsson of Caterham crashed and created a red flag bring down their chances of going through to Q2.

We will have to see how the weather holds up tomorrow. Given Lewis Hamilton’s bad luck in the previous race, he would be desperetly hoping that the race goes well.

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