Cassie Nunn-Price
50RPM
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2014
- Messages
- 67
Nico Rosberg claims his second pole in a row, in front of team mate Lewis Hamilton. The dominant Mercedes pair keeping the Williams' at bay, with Sebastian Vettel claiming a surprising P3.
Saturday at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve saw a multitude of accidents in FP3, and later on an exciting 3 qualifying sessions.
Esteban Gutierrez was the first to spin out in FP3, ruining his day by hitting the barrier at turn 4; resulting in the Mexican not being able to compete in qualifying. The next driver to receive a scare was Kevin Magnussen who lost his McLaren into turn 1, the young driver and his car safe from any accidents.
Turn 8 saw three different drivers spin out, Romain Grosjean, Marcus Ericsson and Sergio Perez. All three drivers continuing like normal afterwards.
FP3 ended with Lewis Hamilton setting the fastest time of 1:15.160, 0.476 seconds ahead of Felipe Massa in his Williams. Nico Rosberg rounded up the top 3 with a time of 1:16.120.
Qualifying started off as normal, the excitement began nearer the end of the Q1 session. Sergio Perez spinning into turn 8, similar as to what happened in FP3. Maldonado was next, his Lotus losing power resulting in him pulling off into a slip road. Shortly after Marcus Ericsson was the next to make a mistake, resulting in him spinning out and crashing in the exit of Turn 9, causing a red flag with less than 20 seconds left to go.
The two Williams of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas looked strong in the beginning of Q2, holding the top 2 spots for a while. Hamilton and Rosberg was the first to break the Williams pair, however Massa continued to keep the number one spot by only 0.059 seconds to Rosberg.
With 4 minutes left to go in Q2, only 1.1 seconds between the top 15. The top 10 even closer, only 0.540 separating between 1st and 10th.
The drivers began filtering out with 2 minutes to go; everyone but Alonso out with 1 minute to go. A tense final few minutes for drivers, teams and fans.
Chequered flag saw Hulkenberg and Magnussen get pushed out from the top 10, joining Perez, Grosjean, Kvyat and Sutil in the drop zone. It also saw the two Merecedes of Hamilton and Rosberg take the recognizable 1st and 2nd respectively, pushing Massa to 3rd.
Q3 saw the Williams of Bottas go out first, setting a decent time of 1:15.550 on the empty track. Rosberg was the next driver to set a great time, claiming a time of 1:14.946, the first sub 1:14 time set the whole weekend; team mate Hamilton following seconds behind and setting a time that allowed him to take P2.
Final 2 minutes saw the drivers leave the pits for the final time, hoping to claim pole position.
Rosberg claimed provisional pole with a time of 1:14.874, with only a few moments waiting for Lewis Hamilton to take the chequered flag, however by making a mistake in sector 2 it resulted in Lewis taking P2 with 1:14.953.
Ricciardo was the dominate driver of the two Red Bulls' throughout Q3, however Sebastian Vettel showed his speed where it counts, surprising the F1 world and claiming P3. The two Williams separated the two Red Bulls, with Alonso, Vergne, Button and Raikkonen finishing off the top 10.
