Okay if you have clicked on this thread and do not want to know the results ... er, you are lacking something Anyway, so far this season and this race Massa is proving me right, ie. he is useless and I do hope that Ferrari can let him disappear. You only get one chance at F1 and he has had the red carpet rolled out ... but continues to walk in the dirt! I again believe he has to take some of the blame for Ferrari taking so long to get on top of the F2003GA ... ie. he replaced one of their regular test drivers, which they had to get back to sort the car out. Webber looks like he is having another slack weekend Pete
Good time for Webber in the end considering he is going to have 1 second added to his time for a yellow flag infringement (Mr Payne, told you they take yellow flags very, very seriously and he did not even pass anybody. All Webber did was set his fastest sector time during a yellow flag ... Montoya would have had the book thrown at him for passing MS at Monaco if he had actually passed him ... I still think it was MS's fault though). Anyway back to Webber, because of this penalty I assume they have added gas and thus again good time if this is true. So far: Trulli Webber Klien Hiedfield Pantano (making Hiedfield look ordinary ... maybe he is?) Massa Bruni Baumgartner Pete
Fisi not to qualify because he lost an engine on Friday. Thus he has opted out of qualifying and thus I guess will start at the rear. Doesn't Fisi drive for Sauber and thus we are talking a Ferrari engine failure!!!!? Not good for all the fans watching ... slack attitude Sauber! Pete
Toyota maybe getting better ... or they will have to pit on the first race lap because Da Matta is faster than Webber. Pete
Both Renaults faster than the 'wonderful, supposedly brilliant' Montoya. How could that be?, I thought he was the next best driver behind MS? ... I must have been miss-informed surely Even sleeping RB managed to beat the wonder of Montoya. Pete ps: Can't wait for the excuses. Maybe they had forgotten to remove the fuel rig or something Gosh probably 3rd best car and now even Kimi in the self destructing McLaren has out qualified the 'overhyped' sensation of Montoya. Maybe it will be Montoya's year next year, or the year after or even the year after, er ... or maybe even the year after at his local go kart track ...
I'm disappointed Button did not make it to P1. Oh well P3 is not bad. It does show that McLaren have found something, or not put any fuel in ... I don't think McLaren would play those games though, too professional. Coulthard also will not be playing ... man all those spectators that paid for tickets for qualifying are getting ripped off! Stupid qualifying format, just stupid. Lets see if RS can make Montoya's lack of talent really stand out ... ? Pete
Well RS manages to show that the Williams are struggling this weekend ... damn that man, he has been fast all weekend up to this point! Got to go MS is out and he has already set the fastest s1 and s2!!! Pete
[size=+5]Wow!!![/size], MS has just given the others a leason on how to drive! 1 second faster than sleeping RB, and 0.6 faster than even Sato (who has been on fire ... ). That Montoya is how you demonstrate that you are worthy, not with your mouth or crashing into other cars (not talking about Monaco here ... ), but with your consistent qualifying pace. Pete ps: Thanks for chatting guys
O.K., if anyone in the Fantasy competition picked these qualifying results exactly, I want to shake their hand and buy them an adult beverage. How could you see Sato and Trulli in 2 and 3? Remarkable. Gary
As predicted with McLaren. Engine failure number 1 DC. His race is effectively down the drain o start from p19. $10 says TS will jump the start. Hope BAR pulls him from the race if thier engine starts smoking again.
Want proof that this is indeed a World Championship? The top 8 drivers (and 9 of the top 10) are of different nationalities!
Actually, it seemed pretty predictable to me. One of just a few likely outcomes based on recent races and practice sessions. First, the obvious... MS would be on a 3-stop and would outpace everybody. The first gamble is whether RB or Kimi would be on a two-stop or 3-stop. I'd put them #2 and #3 (not sure which order) if both on three-stop. But McLaren has been favoring 2-stop this season and RB has been known to go two-stop, a hedging strategy of sorts vs. MS. However, I made the mistake of gambling RB would 3-stop this race... should have bet on 2-stop. The next two in recent races have been Sato in the BAR and Trulli in the Renault... both teams favoring 3-stop. The only question is what order those two would be in. I debated this one a while, and then made the wrong choice... but it actually was the right one for the game, as it turns out. I picked Trulli then Sato... but since I had RB in 2nd, that put Trulli 3rd. So, in this case, my two wrongs (RB on three-stop and Trulli ahead of Sato) ended up making a right (Trulli in 3rd). So, a respectable 17 pts for qualifying! But to your point... I didn't find the result surprising at all.
Actually, there was one surprise... I didn't expect MS to blow away the rest by that much! The guy is simply phenomenal!!!
Wow, during qualifying session 1, Sato pulled off a very impressive 1'27"691. By comparison, a 1'28"351 enabled Michael Schumacher to get pole position during qualifying session 2 (Sato was off the pace by 0'00"635 this time around). I wonder if anyone will beat the 1'27"691 during the race? Also, the cars are much faster this year. Look at the improvement in lap times from last year! 2003 Results Pole: Raikkonen 1'31''523 Best lap: Raikkonen 1'32''621
eh not quite! I think it is missing a worthy American driver. Whether or not it is JG is a different story. It would be good to see an American driver with an American team (based in Europe ofcourse) compete in F1. Unfortunately the turn left series the big thing for youn drivers in the States
I was surprised by MS's pace, but based on Renault's pace all thru practice, I can't understand where a 3rd in qualifying came from. And Sato outqualifying Button surprised me too, he usually will make just one mistake that takes him out, but he does seem to be getting more consistent. I had picked MS, JB, RB for qualifying. Gary
Gary, When i was making my picks i put MS in 1st and was jumping between Sato and Button for 2nd... Un fortunatly i went with button on top of that i picked RB in 3rd Oh well kiss 2nd place in the standings away Beast
If not, he has so much egg on his face they might consider putting Badoer in that spot. I agree with Pete on Massa. Useless. Not sure DC really suffered an engine failure. His car quit and he had to use the muletto, that's why he goes ten spots back, but that doesn't mean necessarily it was an engine failure. Any comments? At any rate I have the somber feeling that this is going to be not much of a race. Probably another start/finish victory by MS with 30 seconds ahead of the second driver.
I watched the qualification... Overall it was a good watch, only BMW really managed to disappoint me. I don't know whever the drivers or BMW are to blame for these bad results... I would really want BMW to succeed in F1 I was also impressed by Sato. Everyone keeps screaming how bad he is, yet today Sato managed to prove the opposite
One day does not a career make, but he is showing good speed. If he stays consistent and gets some good finishes over the course of a whole season I'll be impressed...until then, he has much to prove. Gary
From F1-Live.com: An afternoon of mixed fortunes for the Team McLaren Mercedes team saw David Coulthard suffering from an engine failure on his in-lap after setting the fourth fastest time in the first qualifying session. The decision was taken that for David to have the best chance in the race he would not use the T-car for his race qualifying run but change the engine on his racecar. As a result he will start tomorrow's 60 lap race from the back of the grid.