2012 Chinese Grand Prix

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Jiggins
Now the question is, will mercedes have any race pace?
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If the weather is anything like today or a little bit warmer, I think they have the chance to stay ahead and keep the tyres alive. If that gone well, I have no doubt that they will have the race pace altogether. At the start, they're both - Nico and Michael are brilliant starters so I can't really see anybody challenging them into the first corner unless they made a mistake. They must get away from the cars behind them otherwise the DRS will eat them on lap 3...

Watch out for the Sauber though. Sitting 3rd on the grid, Kobayashi will not make it easy for the person in front of him and also the person behind him.
 
Anghammarad
No. I don't think I can be labeled as a Kimi fan. I like him a whole lot better than many of the other drivers though and my reasoning for him winning is that the Mercs are only so so when it comes to race pace and that Kobayashi will almost certainly buckle a bit. Button and Webber are the main rivals of course (Hamilton is too far back at the start.) but I would very much prefer a Räikkönen win if I had to choose. Not because I dislike Button and Webber but because I like the underdog.

But most of all I would like to see Alonso drive a world class race to take another victory of course. :sly:
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Hamilton is almost right behind Kimi. If anything, hamilton isn't far enough.
 
Well, I've looked into my newly discovered crystal ball and I predict that Mercedes will fall off the pace, Raikkonen will win followed by Webber and one of the Sauber's and Sebastian Vettel will be around 6th. Who knows though, you're guess is a good as mine.
 
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Who can tell, are the starters 2, 4, 6 and so on, on the inside line for the first corner? If they are it must be the dirtyer side but still I could see a slight chance for Kimi to get Koba in the start, even though the 1st one is a little bit odd shaped :p
 
Anybody remember Raikkonen going around the outside of turn one at the start and overtook one of the Honda back in 2006? I would love to see that happen again this year :D
 
Q2: Holy. ****.

Vettel?! I guess the "A-Spec" exhaust wasn't that good after all...
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98809

I'm surprised Horner say it isn't down to the exhaust, which means... He isn't talking down Webber's performance!

I don't think Massa did too bad. Only three tenths behind Alonso is a car that is extremely hard to drive.

EDIT: Lap from Rosberg: Wow. Perfect. Beautiful.

It's great to see Sauber up there. It's going to be hard to get past them on the long straight.
 
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LMSCorvetteGT2
Hamilton is almost right behind Kimi.
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Yes, but it's also the small matter of getting past Button and Webber before he can attack Räikkönen. I would say that it is a more difficult task than the one Kimi faces passing the people in front of him.
 
Wow, brilliant qualifying!:D About time Rosberg got his pole position, nice to do it by a full half second, it will be very interesting to see what happens regarding the Mercedes race pace, with the usual race-winners all 5th and behind. Kobayashi 3rd has a very good chance, as does Kimi, but I think Lewis will win it, even starting in 7th.


XRFalcon
Interesting start tomorrow we have Mercedes (1st, 2nd), Sauber (3rd), Lotus (4th) and McLaren (5th). Reminds me of Belgium 2009 when so many teams had suprising qualifying results.
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I was thinking that myself.
 
Do my eyes deceive me? A Mercedes front row lockout? Kobayashi starting in 3rd? If the Mercedes tyre wear hurts them tomorrow, we could see a Sauber take it. Even Raikkonen is in with a shot.

I'd love to see a Schumacher win more than anything else though. He is a great starter, even better than his teammate, and his race pace has been better than Nico's since last year.
 
And most comments that I've heard are to do with the cars that use their tyres more being able to heat them up quicker for qualifying, and that's why Merc are 1st and 2nd.

However, they seem to forget that the Sauber doesn't use it's tyres much at all. So, when/if others run into tyre trouble tomorrow, look for the Saubers to move up even more than 3rd and 8th.
 
The Sauber seems to be developing some ridiculous pace! I can't wait to see how the race unfolds itself 👍
 
That was a crazy qualifying, but definitely a good'un. I literally have no idea who might win tomorrow. Would like to see the McLarens grab another win, but I'd be equally happy with either of the Saubers, either of the Mercedes or seeing a fight through the field from Alonso again. I have a funny feeling that Alonso will win this year's title, provided Ferrari makes improvements throughout the year. If he's as quick as he is in an uncompetitive car, I'd love to see what he can do as Ferrari ups the pace.
 
Ferrari shouldn't bother making a new car for the rest of the year. All they need to do is buy the Sauber and develop that...
 
That was one of the best Qualifying sessions I've seen. Nico Rosberg's lap... absolutely amazing, I never saw that coming. I know Michael backed off the moment they saw Hamilton would not challenge for that pole and noone else could beat them, but still... I am a big Schumacher fan (As I have said) but I think even Schumi would have been at least 0.1s slower than Rosberg.

The other good thing about this is that the Merc was set up for race, not for quali at all... so tmrw, provided Schumi and Rosberg don't take each other out (Which I'm sure they won't), I'm holding out for a Schumacher win and a Rosberg P2. Hell, I'll even take a Rosberg win and Schumi P2!

As for Vettel... it's interesting to see him this year... just another average driver? xD
Whatever the matter is with that car, I do hope it gets fixed, but Webber seems to love his setup. Perhaps Vettel would be wise to follow suit.

Alonso/Massa: I dunno what to make of them. Alonso is obviously trying hard, as is Massa, but that car is just horrendous. It understeers then oversteers, then the rear end switches under braking. Judging by all of that, to me it looks like they have a problem with the Front wing primarily.

Prediction for tmrw:
P1: Schumacher/Rosberg
P2: Rosberg/Schumacher
P3: Raikkonen
P4: Button
P5: Hamilton
P6: Webber


Hero: Schumacher/Hamilton
Villan: Vettel

I don't rule out a McLaren win or Webber win though. Nor do I rule out Raikkonen winning. But the Saubers don't have a chance tmrw, not against 4 Champions, Rosberg in his current mind-set or Webber in his current mindset. Expect an amazing race...
 
niky
Do note, Vettel was only 3/10ths off of P1 in Q2. Positions 1-10 were separated by a mere 2/10ths of a second. That's incredibly tight. Red Bull may have thought they had the time, but they didn't reckon on the rest of the field being so damn competitive. Bad call, but an understandable mistake.
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Tightest Q2 ever probably...
 
Vettel was running another lap when the flag fell. They weren't resting him/car/tyres on the assumption they'd made it through. He had chance to improve his time to get into Q3 - and failed.
 
Seb
"I was happy with the laps I had in qualifying. There were no mistakes, but they weren't quick enough. It's as easy as that."
--
"As I said, I was pretty happy with the laps I had in Q2, but they weren't quick enough. We have to start the race from P11 and see what we can do tomorrow. Surely it makes it a bit harder, but not impossible to do a good race."
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So what about missing those tight apexes 'almost every lap'? Weird comment imo from such a great driver.
 
Haha, seems so. Also Kimi said he had to put the old parts back for the quali, they couldn't figure out yet which of the new parts work and which doesn't. But as a package it was obviously a disapointment.
 
What a fantastic P3 session! For the first time in quite a while Formula 1 is actually quite competitive. At this rate, we could see three different teams win in the first three races. Normally by now we can usually tell who the top team is going to be, but so far I can't.
 
I've just realised that everyone had sort of forgotten about Kamui. If he wins tomorrow (very unlikely I know) it'd make a great underdog story. I still think the Mclaren's are going to nail it tomorrow, but if it stays cold then Merc has a chance. You can't discount any of the top 7 I guess.
 
daan
He's not a violent man. He never hit an apex.
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:lol:

Things are looking pretty handy for the McLaren boys, if they can produce the race pace that they have been showing earlier this season, and avoid any problems, (including pit-stops) they could be looking at a McLaren double podium...

07:30 tomorrow morning, I'll be stuck in front of that TV 👍
 
I can't describe how happy I am right now and how excited I am for tomorrow. Boy oh boy does Rosberg deserve HIS FIRST POLE FINALLY! And Schumacher on P2 makes it all perfect. I really hope they cross the line tomorrow in that order, everything behind that=I don't care.
Though, I would also like to see those drivers to win: Kobuy, Kimi, Perez, Hulkenberg (not gonna happen I know).
 
Awesome qualifying, I wasn't expecting Rosberg on pole! Anybody suffer the BBC's "Technical Problems"?
 
Nah, watched it on Sky :p

Also, I don't know if it was just me, speaking of Sky, but I didn't notice any ad breaks at all through the whole programme.
 
MildAshers
Nah, watched it on Sky :p

Also, I don't know if it was just me, speaking of Sky, but I didn't notice any ad breaks at all through the whole programme.
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Didn't see any ads here either! 👍 First session this season following through Sky stream and was quite pleased 👍
 

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