Last weekend’s polesitter and debut race winner Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes
could only manage fifth, followed by an astonishing performance from Daniel
Ricciardo in sixth for Toro Rosso.
Lotus’ Romain Grosjean starts seventh, followed by the Sauber of Sergio Perez,
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Paul di Resta in his Force India.
The Silverstone-based team were not shown once during the session by Formula
One Management, who control the television feed.
It has been suggested that was in response to their decision yesterday not to
take part in second practice due to safety concerns for their staff after
four were involved in a petrol-bomb incident on Wednesday.
To underline the competitive nature of qualifying these days, the top 15
drivers in Q2 were covered by a second.
Kimi Raikkonen was its prime casualty, ironically dumped down out of the top
10 by team-mate Grosjean, who was third quickest in the session with half a
second covering them.
Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi and Nico Hulkenberg for Force India line up 12th and
13th, ahead of Ferrari’s two-time winner here Felipe Massa, but who again
failed to make Q3, while Williams’ Bruno Senna lines up 15th.
After starting from second on the grid on Sunday in Shanghai, Michael
Schumacher will tomorrow be forced to fight his way through the field from
17th after being knocked out in Q1.
A combination of factors resulted in his surprise early exit, most notably a
DRS failure, which can be used for almost half of a lap in qualifying
compared to just one overtaking point in a race.
The seven-times champion also made an error on his one hot lap and then
Mercedes clearly thought he was safe, with it all adding up to a qualifying
disaster.
While Schumacher sat in his garage seemingly preparing for Q2, his name slowly
tumbled down the timesheet as a number of others switched to the softer,
faster Pirelli compound.
Ultimately, in the dying seconds, it was Heikki Kovalainen in his Caterham who
dumped Schumacher out of Q1, with the Finn 16th.
Williams’ Pastor Maldonado qualified 17th, but drops to 22nd due to incurring
a five-place penalty for a gearbox change.
Behind Schumacher will be Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne, Vitaly Petrov in his
Caterham, Marussia’s Charles Pic and HRT’s Pedro de la Rosa, who all move up
a place courtesy of Maldonado.
On the back row will be Timo Glock in his Marussia and Narain Karthikeyan for
HRT.