F1: Chinese GP - Qualy Report: Lewis claims crucial pole

[Rory Phoulorie]

Saturday 6th October 2007

Lewis Hamilton's chances of winning the World title in China were given a boost when he claimed arguably the most crucial pole position of his career on Saturday.

The McLaren rookie, who holds a 12-point advantage over Fernando Alonso in the race for this year's Drivers' crown, lost out to the Ferraris in the opening two sessions but pulled a brilliant lap out the bag when it mattered most.

He posted a 1:35.908 to beat Kimi Raikkonen by 0.136s while Felipe Massa was third quickest with a 1:36.221.

Alonso meanwhile will be starting fourth on the grid after a scruffy middle sector saw him unable to challenge for pole position


Qualifying Report
The temperature and humidity at The Shang circuit was not quite up at the Malaysian levels of earlier in the year, but after cool races in Belgium and Japan it was a distinct difference. The temperature was up to 29C and the track at 43C with high winds ahead of the edge of a passing typhoon system for the race on Sunday.

Kimi Raikkonen took to the track early to check all was well with a slight hydraulic leak he'd suffered at the end of morning practice. The Finn had been fastest in all the practice sessions and was widely predicted to be on pole for the race. Of the top four, Hamilton was clearly the one with the most to learn having driven on the circuit for the first time the previous day.

A succession of P1 times were reeled off.Yamamoto 1:40.285

Sutil 1:39.010
Kovalainen 1:37.810
Schumacher 1:37.545
Rosberg 1:37.536
Webber 1:37.267
Vettel 1:37.070

Which ended with Hamilton going over a second faster on 1:35.798. Alonso was marginally slower than his team-mate, then Massa snatched P1 off him with a 1:35.792.

With three minutes left on the clock Raikkonen was yet to set a time but out on track going the quickest of all. At this stage the places were:
13. Coulthard
14. Davidson
15. Button
16. Wurz
17. Kovalainen
18. Trulli
19. Sato
20. Sutil
21. Yamamoto
22. Raikkonen (no time)

Times began to tumble as cars crossed the line in the massive wave we have come to expect after the chequered flag. The Renaults looked in serious trouble at this stage. Wurz came home in P11, then Barrichello in P9 (in normal Q1s this would have been enough to get both through, but times were falling fast). Then Davidson went P9 for Super Aguri and a lot of people looked vulnerable. Vettel charged home in P7, Coulthard then took the P7 slot, Rosberg managed P11, Kovalainen a weak P14 and team-mate Fisichella just P16.

Then both Toyotas crossed the line inside the Top 16 and ruined Barrichello and Fisichella's chances. So out went: 17. Barrichello
18. Fisichella
19. Wurz
20. Sato
21. Sutil
22. Yamamoto

At a time when he needed to look strong, Fisichella's violent understeer had done him no favours at all. Kovalainen only just squeezed through into Q2.

Qualifying 2
The last-minute improvement of the circuit in Q1 made it unproductive to go out on the circuit too early for Q2 and four minutes of the fifteen minute session had gone by when anyone ventured down the pitlane.

Tonio Liuzzi took provisional P1 time which was wrested from him by Mark Webber with a 1:36.735. Unusual for the Red Bull pecking order, David Coulthard got his nose in front with a 1:36.724. Then Felipe Massa reduced the P1 time by a whole second to 1:35.796 and Kimi Raikkonen stamped Ferrari authority over the times with a far quicker 1:35.381.

This time round it was Fernando Alonso who got ahead of Lewis Hamilton making it 3 and 4 for the McLaren team with a significant gap between the front four and the bottom 12, with the Red Bulls mixed in with the BMWs.

With three minutes to go the positions were:
7. Webber
8. Heidfeld
9. Liuzzi
10.Button
11. Vettel
12. Kovalainen

13. Schumacher
14. Davidson
15. Trulli
16. Rosber

Again, all was set for the mass wave of cars finishing in succession. First of these was the out-of-sorts Nico Rosberg who couldn't better his time in an ill-handling Williams. Heidfeld moved to P6, Webber stayed P7, Davidson came across the line in P14, Coulthard jumped ahead of Webber to claim P7, Ralf Schumacher put in a heroic lap to take P9, Button grabbed an amazing P9, while Trulli could only manage P13, Vettel was only good enough for P12.

Button's late lap pushed Toro Ross team-mate Tonio Liuzzi into P11 after a far stronger qualifying than in Japan, and Kovalainen stayed a dismal P14 to mark Renault's worst qualifying of the year. So out went:
11. Liuzzi

12. Vettel
13. Trulli
14. Kovalainen
15. Davidson
16. Rosberg

Qualifying 3
With the prospect of a wet race on Sunday, the level of fuel in the car would be very much a gamble. Judging by the evenly matched pace of the front-runners it looked as though McLaren might now have opted for slightly less fuel than Ferrari, but BMW were going the whole hog and putting loads in both cars. Jenson Button in the Honda knew he wasn't going to challenge the front three rows and went tactical and heavy right from the start.

After only a short amount of the fuel burning phase, with 9.50 left on the clock, Hamilton came in for some hard tyres. It was relatively early for a first stop, but five of the ten drivers came in. The quicker tyre was the Bridgestone soft but Lewis and then Fernando both had a set of hard tyres and it was surmised that McLaren were scrubbing them up in preparation for a drying track on Sunday.

Hamilton's first time was a 1:36.610, with Alonso slower in P2. Kimi Raikkonen was quicker with a 1:36.548 and he took P1. Given that Raikkonen had been consistently quicker before, the gap had narrowed considerably, so surely the difference was fuel. Felipe Massa showed that maybe Ferrari had split their strategy with a much faster time of anyone, a 1:36.221.

Behind them David Coulthard continued to impress with P4 for Red Bull ahead of Alonso.

Into the final round of hot laps and all the front-runners switched to the Bridgestone soft tyres which would give a much quicker lap time, but an unrepresentative one for race pace. Lewis Hamilton had the advantage of being first on track and so was able to amble round his outlap, babying his tyres.

The lap he put together was immaculate, almost as good as the pole lap of Fuji the previous weekend, with the car hooking up every apex. It was exhilarating stuff and showed above anything else that he has learned the circuit quickly.

His time, a 1:35.908 was impressive, but surely the Ferraris would take a similar hike in pace and cruise to the front row. After all, Massa had managed a 1:36.2 on hard tyres with more fuel on board.

First across the line was team-mate Alonso who improved his time, but was 0.6 behind Hamilton. Kimi Raikkonen looked to be on a good lap, and his 1:36.044 was half a second quicker thanks to the soft tyres, but it was not enough. However Felipe Massa would surely grab pole with a potential improvement of 0.5, he would be aiming at a 1:35.7 lap time. Instead, the Brazilian lost time in the middle sector and was very wild out of the final turn and could only manage P3 (not improving at all)

So Hamilton had taken his second consecutive pole, on a day when he was probably only aiming to stay in front of his team-mate. Though Alonso has been prone to muttering about engineering differences between his and Hamilton's cars since he failed to turn up at the FIA hearing in Paris, Massa's lap time showed that driver error can account for so much.

Behind them David Coulthard finished fifth and Ralf Schumacher a fantastic sixth place, his best qualifying of the season coming too late. With Heidfeld and Kubica putting in lap times that were two seconds off the pole time in P8 and P9, their intention is clearly to run as long as possible in the wet tomorrow. Though there is a 70% prediction of rain, that 30% likelihood of no rain could make them look very foolish if the typhoon changes course.

Whatever happens, you can bet that Lewis Hamilton will be a lot closer to any pace car tomorrow.

Frank Hopkinson


Times
01 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:35.908
02 K. R�ikk�nen Ferrari 1:36.044
03 F. Massa Ferrari 1:36.221
04 F. Alonso McLaren 1:36.576
05 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:37.619
06 R. Schumacher Toyota 1:38.013
07 M. Webber Red Bull 1:38.153
08 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:38.455
09 R. Kubica BMW 1:38.472
10 J. Button Honda 1:39.285
11 V. Liuzzi Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:36.862
12 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:36.891
13 J. Trulli Toyota 1:36.959
14 H. Kovalainen Renault 1:36.991
15 A. Davidson Super Aguri 1:37.247
16 N. Rosberg Williams 1:37.483
17 R. Barrichello Honda 1:37.251
18 G. Fisichella Renault 1:37.290
19 A. Wurz Williams 1:37.456
20 T. Sato Super Aguri 1:38.218
21 A. Sutil Spyker F1 1:38.668
22 S. Yamamoto Spyker F1 1:39.336


Planet-F1