An eighth row start for Jaime Alguersuari and one row back for Sébastien Buemi is what awaits our driving duo tomorrow, after the Spaniard qualified sixteenth and the Swiss seventeenth in this afternoon’s qualifying. It is only the second time in the eleven qualifying sessions this year, that Jaime has outpaced Sébastien.
There is really not much else to say about the events of this afternoon and once again, we will be relying on the fact that our race performance on Sunday often outshines what has come before.
The final top ten shoot-out this afternoon was really exciting, mainly because Red Bull Racing did not have it all their own way. Ferrari has looked on good form ever since Friday and today, Sebastian Vettel had to work very hard to take pole position, beating Fernando Alonso by a mere two thousandths of a second. In third place came the Spaniard’s team-mate Felipe Massa. Mark Webber is fourth for Red Bull Racing, while row three on the grid is an all-McLaren, all-World Champion affair, as Jenson Button pulled out a strong lap at the end of the session to pip his team-mate Lewis Hamilton for fifth place.
The weather has certainly been unpredictable so far this weekend and the effect of the rain could be felt even if it is a dry race tomorrow: the lack of dry running means that, only this afternoon did the track really start to rubber in and provide a lot more grip and consequently the tyres have to work much harder now than in the early stages of the weekend. Managing the Super Soft and Hard tyres in the best possible way, selecting the best moment to change, could be the key strategic factor tomorrow.
Those of you who watch the races on TV or even at the race track, cannot help but notice how neat, tidy and clean everything is in the Formula 1 paddock, but you never get to see behind the scenes, where all the real work takes place. Just like a swan that glides serenely across the water, while its legs are pedalling frantically beneath the surface, so too, behind the team motorhomes, everyone is rushing around at a great pace. Food and drink is piled up high, giant rubbish bins have to be emptied twice a day, generators make a deafening noise, chefs peel potatoes, staff who started the day on the dawn patrol to cook breakfast for the teams, take a quick nap in the sunshine and a whole F1 subculture life goes on out of the public eye. There have been plenty of strange sights over the years, in this “Secret F1 Village” but few match the label on a box we spotted behind one of the team facilities today: it read, “French Fries, 30 March 2009.” Let’s hope no one has to eat them.
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