Ross Brawn has revealed his shock after Nico Rosberg sealed Mercedes’ first back-to-back pole positions since the 1950's by qualifying in first place, while Hamilton was given a 5 place grid penalty at today's Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying.
Rosberg, who has been overshadowed at Mercedes following the arrival of Lewis Hamilton, showed his class by edging out Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull and the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso to cement a start on the front row.
The result, coupled with Hamilton’s pole at the Chinese Grand Prix last week, seals Mercedes’ first successive pole positions in the modern era, with the last coming six decades ago, but Team Principal Brawn admits he never thought it was possible due to problems the car has had over the weekend.
‘If we’re honest we didn’t see it coming,’ explained Brawn to
BBC Sport.
‘We didn’t have things right, it’s cooler than we expected today, and that’s a concern for tomorrow. It was tight, in the last run he didn’t push that hard, but still put together a good lap. But Nico gradually got there, we had some car issues, but it’s a great job.'
Meanwhile at Mercedes Hamilton,
who admitted this week he still does not feel 100% upto speed at Mercedes yet, suffered failure in the left-rear tyre of his car on the final lap of the third practice session.
And after further analysis by the Mercedes team, they discovered that the car had also picked up substantial damage down the whole left side, including to the suspension and gearbox.
Hamilton’s engineers replaced both systems, but strict F1 rules state that a gearbox must last for five consecutive races and with Bahrain only the fourth race of the new calendar, the 28-year-old was eligible for punishment.
Race officials ruled that Hamilton must start five places back on the grid, meaning his fourth place finished relegated him to ninth on the grid for the race. Hamilton is the third driver who has been punished for the race, with Mark Webber and Esteban Gutierrez also being put back following incidents at last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix. Both Mercedes driver's claim a win would be 'difficult'.
Also in Qualifying today. Felipe Massa moved up to take fourth, while Paul Di Resta showed why his stock is on the rise by coming in fifth. Adrian Sutil was sixth; Kimi Raikkonen was eighth; while Jensen Button made up the top 10.
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