Australian Grand Prix Qualifying
Opening qualifying of the 2008 Formula One season gets underway
As Formula One arrives in Melbourne for the opening race of the 2008 Grand Prix season, new rules and changes in technical regulations set the scene for the coming months
As dawn broke over the 2008 Formula One season it brought with it a sigh of relief from Fernando Alonso: his new team-mate, rookie Nelson Piquet Junior, isn’t as quick as him.
Piquet, son of three-time World Champ Nelson Piquet, struggled to get the best out of his Renault R28 and failed to qualify for the second round of qualifying, ending up on the last row of the grid and in 21st place by the time the other sessions had finished and a penalty had been applied to Toyota new boy, Timo Glock. Of course, Piquet could try and blame some of his poor luck on the car, as it seems a poor chassis and a faulty differential forced two-time champ Alonso to also miss out on a top grid position at the end of this morning’s qualifying, scraping in to 11th place between the Honda’s of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button.
Honda seem a little more resurgent this year. The chassis is better and more drivable than last year’s recalcitrant model and Jenson Button felt he could certainly have been a top-ten contender had he not made a couple of errors during the second qualifying session.
It was the world champions themselves who seemed to get it all wrong, however. Ferrari (constructor’s champions last year) couldn’t make the best of their new F2008 chassis, and a faulty fuel pump forced the reigning driver’s champion out of qualifying early on; Räikkönen ultimately managed 15th on the grid, benefiting from a one place reprieve thanks to Glock’s penalty. Team-mate Massa, however, simply struggled to get the best from his new car and only managed fourth on the grid. Not a bad position, given that this season has new rules, a new qualifying format and leaves drivers without electronic aids such as traction control, but the Ferrari drivers were still left to be shown how it’s truly done by McLaren, dominant throughout Friday practice and Saturday qualifying.
Last year’s champion-elect, but for a lapse in concentration at the end of the season, managed to put his McLaren MP4-23 on Pole for the first race of the season, whilst new team-mate Heikki Kovalainen was impressive with his third place position. Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren was only split from Kovalainen’s car by the BMW of Robert Kubica, who narrowly missed out on his career-first Pole Position thanks to a wayward moment during the closing stages of his flying lap.
Elsewhere on the grid, Team Force India – the new name for Spyker, who were Midland the year before that and Jordan before that – lamented the lost promise that pre-season testing showed. Giancarlo Fissichella and Adrian Sutil fared poorly, achieving sixteenth and eighteenth for tomorrow’s grid respectively.
With Ferrari conspicuous by the absence of their normally dominant front-of-the-grid presence, tomorrow’s top-ten line-up is made up of a mishmash of unusual names. It all lends hope to an exciting and unpredictable first race of the 2008 season.
1. HAMILTON McLaren
2. KUBICA BMW
3. KOVALAINEN McLaren
4. MASSA Ferrari
5. HEIDFELD BMW
6. TRULLI Toyota
7. ROSBERG Williams
8. COULTHARD Red Bull
9. VETTEL Toro Rosso
10. BARRICHELLO Honda
11. ALONSO Renault
12. BUTTON Honda
13. NAKAJIMA Williams
14. WEBBER Red Bull
15. RAIKKONEN Ferrari
16. FISCHELLA Force India
17. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso
18. SUTIL Force India
19. GLOCK Toyota*
20. SATO Super Aguri
21. PIQUET Renault
22. DAVIDSON Super Aguri
* demoted five places for gearbox change and a further five places for blocking
