Sebastian Vettel took pole position for the Australian Grand Prix, edging out his Red Bull Racing team-maet Mark Webber by a few hundredths. Fernando Alonso was third quickest in his Ferrari, ahead of Jenson Button’s McLaren and Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari. Nico Rosberg again out-qualified Michael Schumacher, but the gap was smaller than it was in in Bahrain. Rubens Barrichello confirmed the belief that the Williams-Cosworth is a decent car with eighth place on the grid, ahead of Robert Kubica’s Renault and the Force India of Adrian Sutil.
Behind them on the grid will be Lewis Hamilton, having a troubled weekend, Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi, Tonio Liuzzi in the second Force India, Pedro de la Rosa in the Sauber and Nico Hulkenberg in the second Williams. Sixteenth overall is Kamui Kobayashi in the second Sauber, Jaime Alguersuari in the second Toro Rosso, a disappointing Vitaly Petrov, Heikki Kovalainen, Jarno Trulli, Timo Glock, Lucas di Grassi, Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok.
A nice front row for Red Bull. Webber was visually pi**ed off. Schumacher getting real close to Rosberg after beating him in FP3 and FP2. Sutil once again made P9 and did one timed lap only with hard tyres. Hopefully he will make better use of this and not be hit from behind as in Bahrain. Massa was surprisingly weak as was Hamilton’s dismal qualifying performance this time.
Hey Joe, No comments on Hami’s OZ Police affair?
Interesting that Lewis explained his 11th place as ‘just not fast enough, I felt as though I got as much as I could have out of the car’. He didn’t explain though why he was the only one to be slower in Q2 than in Q1. The men in front of him improved on average by half a second between Q1 and Q2. If he had matched that, he would have been 5th in Q2.
It sounds as though it was a driver problem. I would be more impressed with him if he had acknowledged that and resolved to put it right. To be fair, I’m sure he will come out fighting, knowing him, but he doesn’t seem to be quite on his game at present.
I would have thought that the return of Michael Schumacher, the total professional, would inspire Lewis to show whether he too should be regarded as an all-time great.