Harder rubber from Pirelli gives teams who complained a distinct advantage.
Without taking anything away from Hamilton's amazing Q3 lap, handing a heavy .452/s to his teammate Rosberg, .604s to Vettel, it's pretty clear recent moves by Mercedes and Red Bull to badger Pirelli into providing rubber better suited to their cars have worked.
It's not surprising cars that are gentle on tires, Lotus, Ferrari, Force India are far behind in qualifying: Thanks to the harder compounds , Red Bull and Mercedes can take advantage of their better downforce without worrying about undue tire wear.
It's a shame F1 has decided to go this way, helping those who had failed at the formula but an interesting marker of Ferrari's decreasing influence on the politics of the sport.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap
1. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m29.607s
2. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m30.059s + 0.452s
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m30.211s + 0.604s
4. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m30.220s + 0.613s
5. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m30.736s + 1.129s
6. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m30.757s + 1.150s
7. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m30.908s + 1.301s
8. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m30.955s + 1.348s
9. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m30.962s + 1.355s
10. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m30.979s + 1.372s
Q2 cut-off time: 1m31.592s Gap **
11. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m31.649s + 0.659s
12. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m31.779s + 0.789s
13. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m31.785s + 0.795s
14. Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes 1m32.082s + 1.092s
15. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1m32.211s + 1.221s
16. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m32.359s + 1.369s
Q1 cut-off time: 1m32.512s Gap *
17. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1m32.664s + 1.669s
18. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m32.666s + 1.671s
19. Charles Pic Caterham-Renault 1m33.866s + 2.871s
20. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Cosworth 1m34.108s + 3.113s
21. Giedo van der Garde Caterham-Renault 1m35.481s + 4.486s
22. Max Chilton Marussia-Cosworth 1m35.858s + 4.863s
107% time: 1m37.364s
* Gap to quickest in Q1
** Gap to quickest in Q2
DiResta demoted to back of grid for being 1.5kg underweight...
ReplyDeleteFrom what the guys on SkyF1 were saying the compounds haven't changed, only the way they bond the tires together to prevent failures. Vergne ran the prototype tires in FP2, but the compounds weren't different from what they were saying.
ReplyDeletePerhaps but they did bring harder compounds that are more to Merc and RBR's liking
ReplyDeleteAh, okay. I was under the impression that it was a normal weekend as far as compounds, and the way they worded it lead me to think it wasn't a tire that they like.
ReplyDelete