After Qualifying…

Qualifying showed that it’s largely situation normal, with a few surprises just to mess with us. The first surprise was Raikkonen grinding to a halt in Q1. He was considered to have broken down on track, and the sporting regs read that you get to play no further part in qualifying if this happens, regardless of how agonizingly close to the pitlane you are. This continues the trend of one Ferrari not making it out of Q1 in Melbourne, with Kimi playing the role the other guy played last year.

The next big surprise was Alonso, who having shown well in practice all weekend, didn’t make it out of Q2. Alonso qualified a lowly 12th, but will start 11th one assumes, with Timo Glock being handed a bunch of penalties for bits of his car falling apart. It would be remiss to point out that if Alonso’s qualifying was disappointing, then Piquet – The Next Generation’s was diabolical. Before the season started the story was that Piquet was going to attempt to destroy Alonso. Piquet is so far off Alonso that it’s almost like he bought his GP2 car with him to F1. At least that would explain the difference in speed.

The Toyota’s are well up. (Or were until Glock sinned by having car problems. It’s so wrong to punish drivers for the failings of their cars.) Though we’ll hold off on the praise as the team have done this before, banged in a few stellar laps, only to collapse into mediocrity again. As a fan of Trulli though, I’m hoping this is genuine pace.

Gap-toothed muppet got the pole, but surprisingly Robert Kubica is there next to him, though on the dirty side of the grid. (With traction control being gone now, this is likely to be more of an issue now I would think.) Kubica was balls to the wall on his final lap and had a MASSIVE moment on the grass, didn’t lift at all, kept it nailed, and STILL secured second on the grid which is pretty damn special. The shame is if he’d stayed on, Kubica could very well have had pole. (Leading to lots of very tedious “Pole on pole” and similar headlines around the globe by lazy journalists with a penchant for stating the blindingly obvious and unfunny.) Barring fuel shenanigans, there is a very real chance of BMW winning the race. Now while I was hoping for a BMW win this season, I will most definitely be doing my dance of joy (which is like my regular dance, only more joyous) much earlier than I expected if they win in Australia as it’s completely unexpected. Of course McLaren will probably try and ruin everything.

One thing that annoyed me was a comment I heard during qualifying. Steve Matchett (from Speed) said “This is what we want, McLaren vs Ferrari!” NO IT IS NOT. We want McLaren vs Ferrari vs BMW at the VERY least. I’m sorry, but to say we WANT just two teams battling at the front is moronic and misguided. I’m sure I speak for many fans of Formula One when I say the more cars challenging for the front, the better. The day we get all ten cars in Q3 with a legit shot at pole will be a happy, happy day.

Unlike most races last year, it looks like we have a 5 horse race up the front with both Macca’s and BMW’s, and the lone Ferrari of that guy who isn’t Kimi. Would have been interesting to see where Kimi would have been. If nothing else, we know how stellar he is when fighting through the field, so even if the battle at the front is stale, Kimi should provide some entertainment tearing through the field to probably finish at least 5th.

Down the bottom end, Piquet splits the two Aguri’s in what can only be described as a pathetic performance (with a qualifier that he MIGHT have had mechanical issues), and Farce India (I know what I typed) are split by Sebastian Bourdais spectacularly losing the opening “Battle of the Sebs”.

I’m not going to see the race until well over 12 hours after it’s finished unfortunately, same with most races this year, so I’ll probably wait until Monday to update.

Here’s hoping BMW are celebrating their first win! Though more than that, here’s hoping it’s a great, excitement packed start to the season.