Lewis Hamilton grabs pole at Monza

Lewis Hamilton had dominated the practice sessions yesterday and today and also maintained his form to grab the pole in Monza in the F1 Italian Grand Prix. History shows that the pole sitter mostly wins the race in Italy.

This is the home ground of Ferrari and the two Ferrari drivers didn’t disappoint the crowd. Kimi Raikkonen scored P2 followed by Sebastian Vettel in P3. Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari came in 1m 23.631 seconds to score the P2. Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari will start the race tomorrow in P3. He had a time of 1m 23. 685s.

Nico Rosberg had to revert back to his older engine and couldn’t beat the two Ferrari drivers. He had to be satisfied with 4th. He had a time of 1m 23. 703s

In the Q3, most of the drivers except Sergion Perez and Marcus Ericsson choose to set to do two laps one at the beginning and the other at the end. In the first such lap, Hamilton scored 1m23.397 for the provisional pole. He was 0.3 seconds faster than Vettel. In the last lap, Lewis Hamilton couldn’t better his own time.

Felipe Massa of Williams and Valtteri Bottas of Williams came in at P5 and P6. Felipe Massa’s time was 1m 23. 940s. Valtteri Bottas was 1m 24. 127 seconds.
Sergio Perez of Force India came in 7th with a time of 1m 24. 626s. He will start in the 4th row. Romain Grosjean of Lotus will start alongside Perez in the 4th row, as he was 8th with a time of 1m 25.054s.

Nico Hulkenberg had a power failure after the first lap and couldn’t take part in the second run. His time of 1m 25.317 was sufficient for P9. Marcus Ericsson of Sauber was 1m 26.214s and was P10. He is however being investigated for impeding Pastor Maldonado during Q1.

In the Q2, Pastor Maldonado of Lotus, Felipe Nasr and Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso, Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull were eliminated from the top ten shoot out as the 11th to 15th placed drivers.

The past results in Monza showed that amazing speed to clinch
The F1 Qualifying is a three stage affair with the first session or Q1 run for 18 minutes where the bottom most 5 drivers are eliminated. In Q2 the rest ie 15 cars run where the top ten qualify for the Q3.

Drivers eliminated in the Q1

Jenson Button
Fernando Alonso
Will Stevens
Roberto Merhi
Max Verstappen

Jenson Button of McLaren had a time of 1m 26.058 and his teammate Fernando Alonso was 1m 26.154 seconds. Will Stevens of Marussia clocked a time of 1m 27.731 and his teammate Roberto Merhi had a time of 1m 27.912. Verstappen of Toro Rosso had an unfortunate incident where his engine cover blew off and he couldn’t do a timed lap.

This year has been unbelievably bad for McLaren who are down with the Marussia cars at the bottom. Though McLaren team has an excuse that they are using Honda engines and Honda has just returned to F1 meaning they are behind, it is not know if all the problems are due to the engine. According to Honda, they are better than the Renault engine and about 30-40 hp slower than the Mercedes and about 25 hp slower than the Ferrari. From that one can guess that atleast McLaren should have been faster than the Toro Rosso and Red Bulls. It appears that McLaren with two world champions are driving trucks while others are racing.

Italian Grand Prix Qualifying Results 2015

Vettel leads Redbull 1-2 vs Hamilton 12th

Vettel scores pole in Monza

Sebastian Vettel scored a pole where it matters the most, in Monza, Italian Grand Prix 2013. The last 13 pole sitters in Monza has gone to win the race. Vettel's teammate Mark Webber, who is retiring from F1 this year, came in second with a time of 1:23.968 vis-a-vis 1:23.755 of his teammate Vettel.

Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber sprung a surprise and qualified in the third position.

Sebastian Vettel's championship rivals fell by the wayside. Lewis Hamilton couldn't quality to the Q3 due to a mistake during his first run in Q2. When he lined up for the second run, he was blocked by Adrian Sutil of Force India and hence was timed out. It would be pertinent to mention that Adrian Sutil and Hamilton were friends but their friendship turned into animosity when Adrian Sutil's brawled in a bar with Gerard Lopez of Lotus and Lewis Hamilton appeared to distance himself from the incident. Sutil was dropped for a year by the Force India last year and came back to racing again this year. It would be interesting to hear what Hamilton says. Adrian Sutil finsh

Sebastian Vettel's other championship rival, Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus also failed to qualify for the Q3 and finished in 11th position.

Vettel's other championship rival Fernando Alonso finished in P5 behind teammate Felipe Massa, as Ferrari couldn't time both the cars for Alonso to tow in behind the slipstream of Massa's car. Or was it a design to show Massa better and ensure that he stays in the team? It is known that Ferrari team boss Domenicalli reportedly wants Massa.

Since the difference between the times of Nico Hulkenberg (P3 at 1:24.065), Massa (P4 with time of 1:24.132) and Alonso (1:24.142) was less, if Alonso could have had the advantage of the slipstream of Massa's car, he could have overtaken Hulkenberg's P3 time.

Nico Rosberg of Mercedes qualified 6th with a time of 1:24.192 and was followed by Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso with a time of !:24.209. He was followed by Sergio Perez of McLaren in 7th, who outqualified his teammate Jenson Button by 0.013 seconds.

Jean-Eric Vergne of Toro Rosso finished in P10.

Italian Grand Prix 2013 Qualifying positions:

1. Sebastian Vettel           Redbull
2. Mark Webber               Redbull
3. Nico Hulkenberg          Sauber
4. Felipe Massa                Ferrari
5. Fernando Alonso          Ferrari
6. Nico Rosberg                Mercedes    
7. Daniel Ricciardo          Toro Rosso
8. Sergio Perez                 McLaren
9. Jenson Button               McLaren
10. Jean-Eric Vergne        Torro Rosso
11. Kimi Raikkonen          Lotus
12. Lewis Hamilton          Mercedes
13. Romain Grosjean        Lotus
14. Adrian Sutil                Force India
15. Pastor Maldonado       Williams
16. Paul di Resta               Force India
17. Esteban Gutierrez       Sauber
18. Valtteri Bottas            Williams
19. Giedo van der Garde   Caterham
20. Charles Pic                  Caterham
21. Jules Bianchi               Marussia
22. Max Chilton                Marussia

Lewis Hamilton in Pole in Italian Grand Prix Qualifying

2012 Italian Grand Prix Qualifying | Formula One

Lewis Hamilton scores pole position in the 2012 Italian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton lead his teammate Jenson Button to lock out the front row in the 2012 Italian grand Prix qualifying. In a closely fought qualifying, 0.5 seconds separated the top 5 drivers. Out of this the top four were only separated by 0.3 seconds.

The 2012 Italian Grand Prix is expected to be a bit different as the “bulldozer Grosjean” has been banned for this race and in his place comes in Lotus reserve driver Gerome d’ Ambrosio. This would be his first race. And expectedly he qualified at 16^th vis-à-vis the 8^th position of his team mate Kimi Raikkonen.
However, the major surprise came from the Ferrari drivers. Felipe Massa who is widely expected to lose his drive in Ferrari at the end of the season scored a P3 where as his teammate and world championship leader Fernando Alonso could only score the 10^th position.

Paul di Resta, scored the 4^th position with a phenomenal time of 1:24.204. Michael Schumacher came 5^th at 1:24.540. He was followed by Sebastian Vettel at 1:24.802. Nico Rosberg who had a very poor outing in the previous race came in 7^th with a time of 1:24.833. Kobayashi came in 9^th at 1:25.109.

At the back of the grid, Narain Karthikeyan was very happy as he could beat his team mate Pedro de la Rosa 0.188 seconds.

2012 Italian Grand Prix Qualifying 

1.     Lewis Hamilton               McLaren       1:24.010

2.     Jenson Button                  McLaren       1:24.133

3.     Felipe Massa                   Ferrari           1:24.247

4.     Paul di Resta                   Force India    1:24.304

5.     Michael Schumacher      Mercedes       1:24.540

6.     Sebastian Vettel              Red Bull        1:24.802

7.     Nico Rosberg                  Mercedes       1:24.802

8.     Kimi Raikkonen             Lotus              1:24.855

9.     Kamui Kobayashi           Sauber            1:24.109

10. Fernando Alonso            Ferrari            1:25.678

Q2

11. Mark Webber                 Red Bull         1:24.809

12. Pastor Maldonado          Williams        1:24.820

13. Sergio Perez                   Sauber            1:24.901

14. Bruno Senna                   Williams        1:25.042

15. Daniel Ricciardo            Toro Rosso     1:25.312

16. Jerom d’Ambrosio         Lotus              1:25.408

17. Jean-Eric Vergne           Toro Rosso     1:25.441

Q3

18. Heikki Kovalainen         Caterham       1.26.382

19. Vitaly Petrov                  Caterham       1:26.887

20. Timo Glock                    Marussia        1:27.039

21. Charles Pic                     Marussia        1:27.073

22. Narain Karthikeyan        HRT               1:27.441

23. Pedro de la Rosa            HRT                1:27.629

24. Nico Hulkenberg            Force India     -

                        

This grand prix is going to be interesting as the championship leader Fernando Alonso is starting in 10th position and his competitors are ahead of him. Lets see how the race unfolds tomorrow. Out of the top five qualifiers three are using mercedes engines. Will Michael Schumacher win this Grand Prix. Or will Lewis Hamilton with this race after suffering many mishaps in the previous races and bring his title efforts back on track?