Sep 24 2011

F1: Singapore Qualifying

So I was watching a digest of the America’s Cup Preliminary series and if you think you can’t have crashes on water you’ve never seen catamarans dump after being rammed from behind.

Flaming chunks of twisted metal.

The problem with unlimited formula racing of some duration is that at a certain point dominant teams tend to… well, dominate and chances for an upset are vanishingly small.  The press part of the Sporting Press is overwhelmed by stories of how Vettel can clinch in Singapore this weekend, but the truth is it’s highly unlikely since even with a victory a top 3 finish by Alonso (who’s had good results at the track) will push the day of reckoning off until Suzuka.

Still you have to have something to write about and the other story line is silly season driver seat speculation with an emphasis on the backlog depth at Renault and Red Bull.  Those of you rooting for Kubica’s return are likely to be disappointed since his rehabilitation is incomplete.

Singapore is a street course run at night entirely under the lights.  It is hot, humid, and long with practically no straight sections to the point that they had some problem finding a suitable place to engage the DRS and you hear disparaging comparisons to Monaco.  It’s also known for parking cars with 5 Safeties in just 3 years.

Exacerbating that problem this year is that they’re having some difficulty keeping the racing curbs down.  These are slightly raised sections designed to keep the cars on the racing line and out of the barriers.  For drivers they’re like rumble strips and they regularly run their wheels over them which is a problem when the sharp, pointy anchor bolts work loose and they start working like tire shredders.

They took 30 minutes off the initial Practice for emergency repairs and were going to be doing some more work before qualifying so this will hopefully be a non-issue except for the time lost refining racing setups.

The tires for this race will be the Softs and Super Softs.  The Super Softs are from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds faster per lap and lose 6 seconds on full fuel.  Both McLarens had some trouble in practice with Button parking 50 minutes early and Hamilton damaging his under car diffuser on the curbing.

Surprises (if any) below.

rustymancuso581

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  8. Petrov

    Kovalienen

    Trulli

    Glock

    d’Ambrosio

    Ricciardo

    Liuzzi

  9. 5 Grid penalty from lap 1 crash @ Monza.

  11. Red Flag with 9:14 in session.

  14. Hamilton collects a flat.

  15. Perez

    Barichello

    Maldonado

    Buemi

    Senna

    Alguersuari

    Kobayashi

  17. Hamilton pits too long, fails to get a final lap.

    The McLaren pit sucks.

  19. Vettel

    Webber

    Button

    Hamilton

    Alonso

    Massa

    Rosberg

    Schumacher

    Sutil

    diResta

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