Hamilton loses pole to Rosberg at Suzuka

Lewis Hamilton who is now leading the F1 World Championship by 3 points, lost the pole to his teammate Nico Rosberg in the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

Though it was a keenly contested qualifying, Hamilton had crashed in the final practice. In the Final top ten shootout, he locked up and Rosberg beat him to the pole by 0.2 seconds. Nico Rosberg set a time of 1m 32.506 seconds to Hamilton's 1m 32.703 seconds.

The Mercedes duo were followed by the Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas in 3rd and Felipe Massa in 4th. Bottas had a time of 1m 33.128 seconds vis-a-vis his teammate Massa's time of 1m 33.527 seconds.

Fernando Alonso who is rumoured to be departing Ferrari at the end of the season for McLaren will start tomorrows race in 5th position with a time of 1m 33.740 seconds. Daniel Ricciardo of RedBull came 6th with a time of 1m 34.075 seconds.

Next came the McLaren duo of Kevin Magnussen at 7th with time of 1m34.242 followed by his teammate and former world champion Jenson Button at 1m 34.317seconds.

Sebastian Vettel of RedBull who has announced that this season will be his last with Red Bull and supposed to be heading towards Ferrari came in 9th by timing 1m 34.432 seconds. He was followed by his next years likely teammate Kimi Raikkonen in 10th. Kimi was timed at 1m 34.548seconds.

Jean-Eric Vergne of Toro Rosso who is looking for a drive next year, will start 11th. He is followed by Sergio Perez of Force India in 12th.

Daniel Kvyat of Toro Rosso will start at 13th. RedBull has just announced that Kvyat will take Vettel's place in Red Bull next year. Nico Hulkenberg of Force India came in 14th. He was followed by the Sauber duo of Adrian Sutil and Esteban Gutierrez in 15th and 16th positions.

Lotus drivers Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean occupy the by now familiar 17th and 18th positions.

Marcus Ericsson of Caterham came in 19th ahead of Jules Bianchi of Marussia on 20th, Kamui Kobayashi of Caterham in 21st and Max Chilton of Marussia in 22nd.

There is likely to be rain and safety car periods in tomorrow race. Hamilton does well in wet races. So it would be interesting to see if Lewis Hamilton can overtake Nico Rosberg during the start and win the race.

Vettel scores Pole and Redbull 1-2 in Suzuka

Sebastian Vettel Scores Pole in Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix 

Red Bull scores 1-2 in qualifying with Sebastian Vettel scoring the Pole in 2012 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix qualifying.

Schumacher who has announced his retirement, made everybody gasp for breath when he was on the verge of being the only driver who couldn’t qualify under the 107% rule. He was in hard tires and had perhaps planned two back to back laps. His first lap was compromised as he ran wide and despite slow cars ahead of him, he could squeeze through and score P16 and qualify to Q2.

The following drivers failed to qualify for Q2

Bruno Senna of Williams at 1:33.405,

Heikki Kovalainen of Caterham at 1:34.657

Timo Glock of Marussia at 1:35.213

Pedro de la Rosa of HRT 1:35.385

Charles Pic of Marussia 1:35.429

Vitaly Petrov of Caterham 1:35.432

Narain Karthikeyan of HRT 1:36.734

It was a great result for Pedro de la Rosa of HRT who outqualified Charles Pic of Marussia and Vitaly Petrov of Caterham.

Mercedes was not fast enough. Michael Schumacher waited till the last moment to hit the track. However, at 1:32.469 he could score the 13^th position, faster than his much younger team mate Nico Rosberg who scored P15 with a time of 1:32.625. Michael Schumacher however has a penalty of 10 grid slots for the accident in Singapore.

Felipe Massa who was threatening to out pace his much fancied rival Fernando Alonso, could only score the P11 position at 1:32.293. Paul di Resta at 1:32.327 is at P12. Pastor Maldonado of Williams again outscored his team mate Bruno Senna. Maldonado set a time of 1:32.512. Daniel Ricciardo scored 1:32.954 for a P16 position ahead of his team mate Jean-Eric Vergne who set a time of 1:33.368

At the top of the table, it was an intensely fought session, with the RedBulls locking up the front row. Sebastian Vettel at 1:30.839 scored the Pole while his team mate Mark Webber at 1:31.090 came in second. Jenson Button of McLaren scored 1:31.290 outscored his team mate Lewis Hamilton who is going to Mercedes at the end of the season. However, Jenson Button will drop down 5 positions due to a gearbox change. The local hero Kamui Kobayashi at 1:31.700 scored the P4 position for Sauber and will be elevated to P3 due to Jenson Button’s penalty.

Romain Grosjean at 1:31.898 scored P5, Sergio Perez at 1:32.022 scored P6. Fernando Alonso at 1:32.114 was P7, Kimi Raikkonen at 1:32.208 was P8, Hamilton at 1:32.327 was P9. Nico Hulkenberg didn’t choose to set a time and was P10.

Many questions to answer. Will Michael Schumacher overcome his 10 place grid penalty and score good points as Suzuka is a drivers circuit?