Brazilian GP: Rosberg shows his dominance once again in FP3

Three out of three practice sessions topped by Nico Rosberg after the German got the better of his team-mate and championship rival once again in practice.

Nico had secured the top spot in both FP1 and FP2 ahead of Lewis Hamilton for the first time this season. But the gap between the two was marginal to say the least. Not only that, Lewis claimed after the second free practice session that he had not been able to hook up a flying lap which suggests Lewis still has some time to find around the Autodrom Jose Carlos Pace.

Other pointers to take from Friday was the poor pace shown by Button in his McLaren, the interrupted running for Gutierrez in his Sauber & Vergne in his Toro Rosso. As well as Sergio Perez not being able to carry out a single lap in FP2 after Juncadella crashed his Force India in FP1.

But that was all yesterday and come 11am in Brazil, the hour long final free practice session kicked off with Maldonado, Grosjean, Bottas, Massa and Raikkonen all heading straight out on track.

After a handful of drivers joined the early birds out on track for some installation laps, the first times began to hit the board after six minutes with Vergne and Perez. Although the early laps are never flying, Vergne held the early lead with a 1:15:117 before improving the benchmark to 1:13:993 a few laps later.

As the early stages began to tick by, the Toro Rosso pair of Vergne and Kvyat began to draw the benchmark into the 1 minute 12s. However, Vergne would soon lose his top spot as the Mercedes powered Williams’ of Massa and Bottas slotted into the top two.

Now the benchmark sat at 1:12:070 through Massa, with Bottas just one hundredth of a second back. Even Hamilton would have loved to be in that spot after 17 minutes, especially with Lewis suffering with locking under breaking.

Firstly Lewis heavily locked his front right tyre under breaking for turn 8, leaving a large black spot on the tyre. Then just minutes later he was locking up again. But this time the lock up came at turn one along with a spin as he lost control of the rear.

Hamilton was not the only driver struggling to slow down in time, with Jean-Eric Vergne also finding himself taking to the run off at turn 1. But instead of spinning, the Frenchman continued down the run off and used the same escape road Max Verstappen used yesterday morning.

As the end of the first half hour approached, the order stood with Massa leading from Raikkonen, Bottas, Ricciardo, Kvyat, Alonso, Magnussen, Vergne, Sutil, Maldonado, Button, Vettel, Grosjean, Gutierrez, Hulkenberg, Rosberg, Perez and Hamilton. At this stage the only tyre to be used had been the medium compound tyres, but some drivers were beginning to make the switch onto the softs.

Eventually more and more drivers put the pedal to the metal on the soft tyres and the benchmark set by Massa began to tumble. First up came Alonso as the Spaniard flung his Ferrari into P1, bettering the all time lap record for the Autodrom Jose Carlos Pace set by Juan Pablo Montoya in 2004.

But still to come were the Silver Arrows with Nico Rosberg shooting his Mercedes above the Ferrari by almost a second. Lewis Hamilton then came across the line in his tweaked Mercedes but lost time over the course of the lap, which ended one tenth down.

When the Williams pair returned to the track on the soft tyres, they were again showing their pace as they locked out P3 and P4. Although Bottas came across the line two tenths down on his team-mate, the Finn still remained within six tenths of a second of Rosberg despite the German’s dominance thus far in Brazil.

And at the chequered flag it was Rosberg who once again had his name above the rest on the time sheet after his 1:10:446 had the better of Lewis by 1 tenth of a second. Ferrari and McLaren were unable to challenge the front order with the two teams locking out P6 through to P9.

Force India will be searching for improvements between now and the start of qualifying after their two drivers ended the session slumped down in seventeenth and eighteenth.

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Time/Retired	Gap	Laps
1	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:10.446		28
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:10.560	0.114	20
3	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1:10.875	0.429	21
4	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:11.054	0.608	23
5	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:11.188	0.742	11
6	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:11.210	0.764	19
7	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:11.316	0.870	15
8	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:11.399	0.953	8
9	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:11.499	1.053	19
10	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	1:11.834	1.388	26
11	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:11.967	1.521	21
12	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	1:12.069	1.623	29
13	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	1:12.184	1.738	27
14	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:12.235	1.789	30
15	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	1:12.235	1.789	29
16	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:12.286	1.840	24
17	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:12.324	1.878	17
18	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1:12.942	2.496	25

United States GP: Post-race penalties for Perez and Vergne

Both Sergio Perez and Jean-Eric Vergne have been handed post-race penalties for causing collisions during yesterday’s United States Grand Prix.

Sergio had brought his and Sutil’s race to an end on the opening lap of yesterday’s United States Grand Prix after attempting to overtake the Sauber at turn 16. However the Mexican caught the rear of Raikkonen’s Ferrari on the exit of the corner, forcing him into Sutil and ruining both their races.

Sutil had qualified within the top 10 for the first time this season and was in a strong position to challenge for Sauber’s first points of the season. Unfortunately the crash with Perez left the Sauber stuck on the track with severe damage to the front left corner. As for Perez, he limped back to the pits under the safety car but had suffered too much damage to be able to continue.

Following the incident, the race stewards decided to delay the investigation into the incident until after the race as both drivers had retired. When the stewards came to their decision, they took a hard view on Perez and held the Mexican responsible for the incident.

In terms of punishment, the race stewards handed the 24-year-old a seven-place grid penalty for the upcoming Brazilian Grand Prix. Perez also received two penalty points on his license for the first time.

As for Jean-Eric Vergne, his late challenge at turn one on Romain Grosjean saw the Toro Rosso driver receive a five-second time penalty and one penalty point on his license.

When Vergne attempted to overtake Grosjean, he forced his way down the inside of the Lotus leaving Romain with a broken front wing. The damage Grosjean suffered left him struggling to stay on the track in the closing laps and continuously fell down the order.

Once the stewards had completed their investigation into the incident, they decided “the driver of car 25 [Vergne] is considered to be predominantly at fault for the contact with car 8 [Grosjean] in turn one and the consequent forcing of car 8 off the track”.

Vergne’s five-second penalty meant Pastor Maldonado’s earlier five-second time penalty was effectively cancelled out and the Venezuelan was promoted to ninth place, where he had finished in the race before his penalty.

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	56	1:40:04.785	2	25
2	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	56	+4.3 secs	1	18
3	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	56	+25.5 secs	5	15
4	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	56	+26.9 secs	4	12
5	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	56	+30.9 secs	3	10
6	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	56	+95.2 secs	6	8
7	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	56	+95.7 secs	18	6
8	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	56	+100.68 secs	7	4
9	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	56	+107.87 secs	10	2
10	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	56	+108.86 secs	14	1
11	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	55	+1 Lap	16
12	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	55	+1 Lap	12
13	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	55	+1 Lap	8
14	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	55	+1 Lap	15
15	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	55	+1 Lap	17
Ret	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	16	Engine	13
Ret	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1	Accident damage	11
Ret	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	0	Accident	9

32 victories in Formula One for Lewis Hamilton after winning the 2014 US Grand Prix ahead of Nico Rosberg

Lewis Hamilton extended his championship lead by a further seven points after edging his Mercedes team-mate and title rival Nico Rosberg to the win at the 2014 United States Grand Prix. The win in Austin, Texas also makes Lewis the most successful British driver of all time with 32 career Formula One victories.

Rosberg started the race from pole position after out shining Hamilton in qualifying by four tenths of a second. This handed the German his ninth pole of the year and a clean run down to turn one. And once the five red lights were out, Rosberg was storming away unchallenged from his grid slot.

Some drivers were not as fortunate as Rosberg, with Bottas loosing third place to Massa. Ricciardo also lost a handful of places off the line after suffering a terrible start but soon recovered and began dragging his way back towards the front.

Unfortunately, the racing at the 2014 United States Grand Prix came to a temporary stop two-thirds of the way through the opening lap. This came as a result of Sergio Perez colliding with Adrian Sutil, leaving both out of the race and the safety car venturing out onto the track.

Perez had gone deep into turn 15 as he attempted an overtake on Sutil. However slight contact with the rear of Raikkonen left the Mexican with no were to go and collided with Sutil. The two sprayed debris across the track as the Sauber came to an immediate halt. On the other hand, Perez crawled back to the pits but the damage he had suffered was too severe to continue.

Once the debris was cleared and the safety car pulled into the pits, Rosberg resumed where he left off and floored the throttle. Meanwhile, Ricciardo was using the tightened up pack to his advantage as he attacked Alonso for P5 up at turn one.

Hamilton had stayed within touching distance of his team-mate from the restart but the gap back to the Williams pair began to appear clearer and clearer with every lap.

After a few laps, it was penalty time as far as the race stewards were concerned with three drivers all facing penalties. Maldonado, Gutierrez and Vergne all were deemed to have exceeded the speed limit behind the safety car, leaving them all with five-second stop/go penalties.

Meanwhile, after starting from the pit lane and pitting twice behind the safety car, Sebastian Vettel was complaining to the team that he had little grip remaining on his tyres. This was the first indicator that pit stops were coming, and on lap 15 the front runners began to hit the pits.

Ricciardo was one of the front runners hitting the pits first, which proved handy for the Australian who used the undercut to his advantage in order to move into P4 ahead of Bottas. At the same time, Hamilton was surrounding his car with Mercedes mechanics as he pitted for the medium tyres.

As Lewis concluded his out lap, he sat over two seconds behind Rosberg after Nico etched out a comfortable lead. However, this would not last long as within just four laps, Hamilton was back within DRS range. Then just two laps later, he was challenging for the lead.

Straight after his pit-stop Hamilton was surging around the Circuit of The Americas faster than Rosberg and obliterated the lead Nico had built up. Then on lap 24, down at turn 12, he made his move with a lunge down the inside and leapt into the lead after blistering down the back straight with his DRS open.

Moments before the lead switched hand, another enthralling battle came to its conclusion. Alonso had been chasing the rear of Button’s McLaren for a few laps but failed to find his way past the Brit for P8. Then as they started their 24th lap of the race, Alonso lunged down the inside of Jenson into turn one and despite locking up moved ahead.

Jenson had been slowing down due to his tyres degrading for some time in the build up to the overtake but in the end was forced into loosing more positions before he was handed a very welcomed pit stop.

As other drivers soon began to head for their next pit stops, the front runners were forced into covering the field in order not to slip up. But a little further back, Pastor Maldonado’s afternoon was becoming worse and worse after he received a second five-second stop/go penalty of the race. This time the penalty came for another speeding incident, except this time in the pit lane.

Following the second round of pit stops, the battle for the lead seemed all but over. With Rosberg running a few seconds behind Hamilton, the German was told to push and instantly took time out of Lewis’ lead. However it did not take the Briton long before he was responding with consecutive fastest laps of the race to extend his lead even more.

As the final laps of the race came into sight, the racing for the final points began to kick off. On lap 49 of 56, Vettel made a late pit stop in a bid for a feisty end to his race. Meanwhile Grosjean looked to overtake Button.

More solid defending by Jenson saw his McLaren stay ahead of the Lotus as Grosjean was forced into turning his attacking into defending as Vergne forced his Toro Rosso down the inside of T1.

Now with just a handful of laps remaining, Vettel’s late charge for a strong finish came into its own. First up on the hit list was his potential 2015 team-mate Kimi Raikkonen for 12th place, followed up by Button and Maldonado. Unfortunately for Jenson, all his strong defending throughout the race came to nothing and he fell out of the top 10. But Vettel’s race was not over just yet and his attack continued.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton was taking the chequered flag four seconds clear of Nico Rosberg. The 25 points compared to Nico’s 17 means Lewis carries a 24 point lead into Brazil next week. But with double points in Abu Dhabi, the championship is still far from over.

As Lewis began to celebrate his victory down the pit straight, Ricciardo came home in third place, a few seconds ahead of Massa and Bottas.

When Valtteri crossed the line in fifth place, the race was far from over with Alonso over a minute behind. This vast gap meant the F1 fans at the circuit could still pay witness to a relentless attack by Vettel as he picked off Vergne and Magnussen to secure P7. If the finish line was just a little further down the road, Sebastian may have even been able to take P6 from Fernando as the Spaniard only crossed the line 5 tenths of a second ahead of the reining world champion.

Maldonado and Vergne rounded off the point scoring positions in ninth and tenth after the duo had a late battle for P9. Pastor left it late, but on the final lap found his way around the Toro Rosso for ninth place, however his five second penalty for speeding in the pit lane meant he would only finish in tenth place.

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	56	Winner	2	25
2	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	56	+4.3 secs	1	18
3	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	56	+25.5 secs	5	15
4	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	56	+26.9 secs	4	12
5	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	56	+30.9 secs	3	10
6	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	56	+95.2 secs	6	8
7	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	56	+95.7 secs	18	6
8	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	56	+ secs	7	4
9	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	56	+ secs	14	2
10	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	56	+ secs	10	1
11	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault		+1 Lap	16
12	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes		+1 Lap	12
13	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari		+1 Lap	8
14	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari		+1 Lap	15
15	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault		+1 Lap	17
Ret	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes		+40 Laps	13
Ret	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes		+55 Laps	11
Ret	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari		+ secs	9

Japanese GP: Hamilton tops FP2 as Mercedes create distance to the field

As the race pace began to show at Suzuka, it was Lewis Hamilton on top of the time sheet. Hamilton topped the second free practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix ahead of his team-mate Nico Rosberg after a 1:35:078 was enough to edge out his championship rival by two tenths of a second.

In the opening free practice session, Rosberg set the pace as he pipped Hamilton to the top spot. This clearly did not give Nico a psychological edge over Lewis when it came to the second free practice session, but things remained close between the pair.

Kamui Kobayashi returned to the cockpit of his Caterham after sitting out FP1 for Roberto Merhi. Also joining Kobayashi back in their cockpits at Kamui’s home race was Jean-Eric Vergne, following the Frenchman sitting out for Max Verstappen to make his Formula One Grand Prix weekend debut.

However Kamui would go on to complete just seven minutes of on-track action. As the Japanese driver lapped the Suzuka circuit, Kamui lost control of the rear of his car as it suddenly stepped out on him as he turned in for turn 4. With no control of the rear, his Caterham span around and headed straight into the barrier.

It wasn’t long until another driver was stopping out on track to join Kamui on the sidelines. Jean-Eric Vergne, the other driver to miss the opening free practice session, was forced into parking his Toro Rosso on the side of the track at turn 7 following a technical issue.

Over the 15 minutes FP2 had been running for before Vergne was forced to park up, Ricciardo was leading the session to Kevin Magnussen. Unfortunately Ricciardo’s table topping time of 1:37:186 would be his last fastest lap of the session as after just another three minutes, another driver was out of FP2.

Ricciardo’s retirement came as the Australian prepared for his next lap. As he exited the chicane at a relatively low-speed he began to accelerate on approach to the final corner. However as he took the little kink of a final corner his Red Bull became slightly out of shape and with little run off at that part of the track, straight into the wall. The impact ripped the front left tyre from his car and eventually brought out the red flags in order to retrieve the car.

After several minutes under the red flag, the session re-started with Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel queuing at the end of the pit lane eager to get back on track with their plans with just under an hour remaining.

This break in proceedings allowed some drivers to switch onto the medium compound tyres. But it wasn’t long before the yellow flags were waving to warn drivers there was another car in the barrier.

Down at Spoon just four minutes after the re-start, Esteban Gutierrez was in the barrier and bringing an end to his session. Unlike Kobayashi and Ricciardo, Gutierrez’s crash did not come from a loss of control in his car instead Esteban went straight into the barrier at speed. A possible reason to explain his crash would be he simply missed his breaking point.

Meanwhile, following his car being retrieved under the red flag, Jean-Eric Vergne was back out on track in his Toro Rosso after his mechanics solved the issue that caused him to park up earlier in the session. Furthermore, Lewis Hamilton had moved to the top spot with Rosberg tucked in behind.

Vergne was almost replaced by Hamilton on the FP2 sidelines when the drivers championship leader suffered a huge moment out of Degner and under the cross-over point. As Hamilton applied the throttle to accelerate towards the hairpin, his rear stepped out and as he fought to regain control, the car snapped in the other direction. Luckily Lewis managed to hold on to his Silver Arrow with the wall looming nearby.

But with Hamilton able to stay out of the barrier, he went on to lower his personal best lap time and create a bit of distance between Rosberg and himself. Before Nico also improved to regain second place from Valtteri Bottas.

Entering the final thirty minutes of the session marked the end to the challenge at the top as long run simulations began to become the main task for drivers. In terms of long run pace, the Mercedes appeared strong and should be fine for another dominant race. But if the rain fall is extremely high, like expected, things shown in FP2’s long run sim is rather useless knowledge.

With the threat of Typhoon Phanfone creating an extremely wet race on Sunday, that’s if the race goes ahead at all on Sunday, a bit of rain began to be expected to hit the track as FP2 approached an end.

One of the plans being talked about on social media is for the race is to be moved to Saturday afternoon where qualifying currently is and move qualifying to the slot designated to the final free practice session. If a plan such as this is chosen by the FIA in order for the race to go ahead, a bit of wet running could provide teams and drivers with vital information for a wet qualifying.

But the end of the second free practice session was marked by another red flag. This time it was brought out when Jean-Eric Vergne was forced into parking his Toro Rosso for the second time in the session. As Vergne made his way through Spoon he changed a setting on his steering wheel and the dash display vanished along with all drive.

With just under four minutes ticking away on the clock when the red flag was waving, race control confirmed the session would not re-start and the session was over.

That meant Hamilton took the top spot and by doing so secured the 100th top spot in a Grand Prix weekend session for Mercedes in 2014. Rosberg stayed within touch of his team-mate before a one second gap to Bottas in third.

Raikkonen and Alonso were unable to impress in FP2 and found 6th place the best they could manage. Ahead of the Ferrari drivers came Button and Vettel as the Friday running in Japan came to an end.

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Time/Retired	Gap	Laps
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:35.078		28
2	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:35.318	0.240	27
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:36.279	1.201	24
4	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:36.409	1.331	28
5	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:36.436	1.358	24
6	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:36.529	1.451	19
7	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:36.637	1.559	26
8	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:36.714	1.636	31
9	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	1:36.943	1.865	27
10	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:37.186	2.108	3
11	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	1:37.219	2.141	19
12	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:37.504	2.426	16
13	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:37.563	2.485	31
14	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1:37.700	2.622	18
15	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1:37.786	2.708	8
16	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	1:37.798	2.720	27
17	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	1:38.010	2.932	25
18	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:38.365	3.287	9
19	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	1:39.069	3.991	22
20	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	1:39.306	4.228	20
21	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	1:39.333	4.255	24
22	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	1:42.760	7.682	3

Another table topping time for Fernando Alonso in FP3 for the Singapore GP

Saturday evening in Singapore started with Fernando Alonso on the top of the time sheet. Alonso edged out the Red Bull of Ricciardo to take the top spot for the second time this weekend, as the drivers prepared for qualifying.

Throughout Friday, the battle in free practice for the top time was between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. In the opening practice session, it was Fernando who took the advantage in his Ferrari to pip the Mercedes. But come FP2 Hamilton moved on top, pushing Alonso behind whilst Rosberg lingered down the time sheet.

Maldonado hit the wall at Turn 10 midway through the second free practice session and brought out the only red flag of the day. During the race a safety car is highly probable but as it was a practice session, the session was stopped. Unfortunately for some drivers, this came during their flying laps. With one of those drivers caught out being Rosberg.

But that was all yesterday and any overnight changes can see a heap of changes on track as drivers and their teams look to perfect their set up ahead of qualifying. One team who went into Saturday needing serious improvements following poor results in the first two practice session were Williams.

Come the green light to mark the start of the session, the evening sky remained bright as the sun set in Singapore.

The first driver of the day to venture onto the streets of the Marina Bay circuit was Max Chilton. A handful of other drivers soon joined him on track but it was Esteban Gutierrez with the first timed lap of the day, a 1:53:971. Before the times slowly began to fall via Magnussen, Button and then Ricciardo as the marker fell towards 1 minute 50.

Over the early stages of the session, drivers appeared to be struggling with the grip levels at hand, with some having an occasional lock up. During the gap between the Formula One practice sessions, a lot of dust has gathered on the track. Which is the most likely reason why drivers were struggling. But for Button, his early lock up appeared to be down to simply leaving it too late to break.

A radio message between the Force India pit wall and their driver was broadcasted on TV around 20 minutes into the session. The team personnel had begun to describe information to their driver, however soon realised it would contravene the new regulations for radio messages and swiftly stopped.

Shortly after this was broadcasted and whilst the drivers began to feel more acclimatised to the conditions, the overall best times slowly improved. Although for Nico Rosberg, he leapt to the top spot with a lap time over a second faster than Ricciardo’s previous table topping time.

As for Rosberg’s team-mate, Lewis Hamilton had a moment through turn 5 as he rode the kerb under breaking before his Mercedes snapped sideways. In general, a car snapping sideways is nothing special, they do it all the time if they do not have sufficient grip. However this time, Lewis was soon on the team radio to tell the them that his engine had briefly stalled.

Hamilton was able to carry on going after his brief engine stall but after returning to the garage, his mechanics gave his car the once over to ensure it was 100% fine to continue. But out on track, Kvyat was suffering multiple lock ups in his Toro Rosso.

Kvyat claimed over the radio that he almost crashed at turn 5 due to his tyre locking. But as for the locking when at turn 13, it was “so annoying”.

With quarter of an hour remaining in the session, the first driver of the day to use the supersoft tyres hit the track in the form of Rosberg & his Mercedes. When he crossed the finish line to set his first time on the fresh rubber, he was able to find slightly over a second compared to his earlier time.

Other drivers were also finding vast gains on the option tyres, with Hulkenberg temporarily moving up to P2. Fernando Alonso, after topping FP1, then gained the top spot in FP3 on his flying lap.

Hulkenberg’s time was soon pushed further down the order as Ricciardo went P2 despite closing in on a Williams in the final corners. Hamilton however was struggling to get towards the front as he carried out a messy lap to move up to P4, and 4 tenths of Alonso.

Hamilton was pushed further down the order before the chequered flag fell as Vettel made his way to P5 and Vergne moved into the top 4. But as the chequered flag waved away to mark the end of the session, Fernando Alonso was still on top. Behind the Ferrari came Daniel Ricciardo, who was just 5 hundredths back. Then Rosberg, a further tenth back.

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Time/Retired	Gap
1	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:47.299
2	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:47.350	0.051
3	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:47.488	0.189
4	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	1:47.693	0.394
5	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:47.711	0.412
6	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:47.738	0.439
7	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1:47.909	0.610
8	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:48.205	0.906
9	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:48.226	0.927
10	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:48.422	1.123
11	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:48.450	1.151
12	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:48.577	1.278
13	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:48.599	1.300
14	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	1:48.637	1.338
15	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1:49.078	1.779
16	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	1:49.115	1.816
17	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:49.485	2.186
18	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	1:50.149	2.850
19	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	1:50.376	3.077
20	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	1:50.939	3.640
21	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	1:51.221	3.922
22	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	1:51.598	4.299

Nico Rosberg secures Pole Position for the Monaco Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg secured pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix by just 0.59 seconds to his team-mate Lewis Hamilton after action all the way throughout each of the three qualifying sessions.

As Q1 got underway Mercedes opted for some clean track running after leaving the box early and queued, meaning they left on cold tyres but the clean air could provide them with an advantage as they start their timed laps. This tactic be very useful for the Mercedes drivers as if they can set a fast enough lap time early on they will be able to save a set of tyres and reduce your running in a busy Q1 session. Unlike the Mercedes pair and almost all of the rest of the field, the Red Bull drivers were the only ones not to head to the track as the session got underway.

Where most of the drivers who headed out immediately, Maldonado in his Lotus chose to start the session using the supersoft tyres. This allowed him to get a fast lap in early and set the pace with a 1:20.045 that put him top of the pile. But not for long as the Mercedes drivers weren’t going full throttle straight from their first lap, allowing Maldonado to set the pace. But as you would expect, they went quickest on their second lap with Nico leading Lewis by eight tenths.

Reasonably early on in the session we had the first crash of the day after Kyvat called in to report he had front wing damage on his Toro Rosso. This came after he exited the tunnel and the rear of his car stepped out on him. He was able to fight to regain control and managed to keep it out of the barrier at first. But after a spin he suffered impact with the barrier. Luckily all he suffered was front wing damage after hitting the wall as he could easily have suffered sever impact, similar to what we saw with Perez a few years back.

As Maldonado continued to ensure he makes it into Q2 on the super soft tyres he was never able to improve meaning he was still behind the Mercedes, in terms of position and out right pace. Not a good sign for the Lotus team, who have been improving recently, to have Maldonado in the top 3, but still over half a second behind the Mercedes, when they were running on the weaker compound tyres.

Like the rest of the field, when Vettel set his first fast lap it was clearly not a lap showing the all of his car but it was still able to put him in 6th position. Which he would managed to improve on with his following lap, which was still only able to put him in 5th.

Now as the session began to approach the end, teams began to head out on the super soft tyres. This helped Magnussen as he was then able to put his McLaren in 3rd. But showing how hard he was pushing, at end of lap that put him 3rd, he locked up the front tyres heavily into turn 1, leaving a black spot on the tyre. At Monaco this year you can easily hear the tyres screeching under lock ups with the reduced noise from this years power units.

Now as the session went into the final minuets, Massa allowed Ericsson to go past into Mirabeau, but Ericsson left it too late to break and went straight on into the barrier. This was unfortunate for Massa, after leaving plenty of track for Ericsson to go past, he had already turned into the corner expecting the Caterham to have gone through without crashing. But this meant that both ended up with their front wings in the barrier. Off camera, Massa was able to continue on track, well slightly. Despite continuing from the crash at Mirabeau he ended up stopping down at turn 8 marking an end to his qualifying.

Massa had manage to put in a time that would have got him through to Q2 but as he couldn’t get back to the pits under his own power he was unable to continue in qualie and joined Gutierrez, Sutil, Bianchi, Chilton, Kobayashi and Ericsson out in Q1.

After qualifying had finished it was announced that Marcus Ericsson will start from the pit lane in tomorrow’s race after the collision with Felipe Massa during qualifying.

Now onto Q2 where once again it was the Mercedes hitting the track first. But this time Rosberg was straight out onto the supersoft compound tyres and again using the first timed lap to continue getting temperature into the tyres. And like in Q1, by doing this it allowed someone else to take the early top spot, this time it went to the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg, before he was pipped down the order by Ricciardo and Magnussen.

Moments later the Mercedes set their first flying lap with Rosberg going top by 0.035s. It was in the final sector is where Lewis was loosing the time to Nico after setting similar times in the first two sectors.

As Kimi Raikkonen attacked the track to get up the leaderboard he was almost attacking too much and found his Ferrari millimetres from the barrier on a lap that saw him move up to 4th place. Clearly trying to get every bit he can out of the car and attack the barriers to give him the best line.

In the early stages of Vettel’s Q2 session his laps weren’t going as he would have been liking. Loosing a lot if time of his flying lap found him backing out. But next time round he attacked the track as much as he could, getting out of the drop zone and up to 4th. Still only good enough to be behind the Mercedes and his team-mate.

As the end of Q2 approached the end, Hamilton was out on track pushing to take the top spot away from his team-mate. Of which he was able to do for the first time in qualifying by 0.111s after setting the fastest sector times in the first and second. Rosberg opted top head to the pits and not challenge his team-mate. But who would join Massa in the drop zone at the end of the session?

Grosjean was one of the drivers sat in the drop zone facing an end to his session, along with his team-mate Maldonado, the Williams of Bottas, the McLaren of Button and the Force India of Hulkenberg. But as all of them pushed to get into Q3, none of them where able to improve. Meaning the rookies of Kyvat and Magnussen make it to Q3 at Monaco.

And in Q3 it was more of the same at the start with Mercedes opting to go slow on their first timed laps, allowing the Red Bulls and Ferrari’s to take an early lead. But once the Mercedes had the throttle down, it was Rosberg leading from Hamilton again, this time by 0.059s.

At the start of the session is was Sergio Perez in his Force India first out on track but at the end of the first sets of times it was Rosberg leading from: Hamilton, Ricciardo, Vettel, Alonso, Raikkonen, Vergne, Magnussen, Perez and Kyvat.

Once the drivers started to leave the pits for their second stint it was once again Perez leaving the pits first. Joint by the Ferrari’s on track and with just three and a half minuets remaining, everyone in the top 10 shoot out was back out on track.

By the end of the first sector, Raikkonen was setting a new personal best but still found himself 0.6s behind the Mercedes. Showing Ferrari still have a lot of work to do to catch the Mercs as he fell to 0.7s behind by the end of the middle sector. On a personal best lap he ended up moving up to 6th, loosing a staggering 0.7s in the final sector, ending his lap 1.4s behind Rosberg.

But for Rosberg, his qualifying was soon over after locking up into Mirabeau. He had gone in too deep, he was left with no space to turn around and with the yellow flags out it meant Hamilton went through not at full speed and backed out of his lap giving Rosberg pole in Monaco.

It may be a hollow pole for Rosberg after securing it via his competitors backing out. But once he pulled his car into the pit lane the joy was clear to be seen with Nico as he did take pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix. Something Lewis would have been hoping to achieve, and the way things ended clearly had got on Lewis’ nerves.

Hopefully the provisional grid that follows remains the same as the race stewards will be investigating some of the action from today’s qualifying now that the sessions have concluded.

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Laps
1	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:17.678	1:16.465	1:15.989	26
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:17.823	1:16.354	1:16.048	27
3	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:17.900	1:17.233	1:16.384	22
4	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:18.383	1:17.074	1:16.547	25
5	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:17.853	1:17.200	1:16.686	27
6	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:17.902	1:17.398	1:17.389	27
7	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	1:17.557	1:17.657	1:17.540	26
8	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:17.978	1:17.609	1:17.555	25
9	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	1:18.616	1:17.594	1:18.090	23
10	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1:18.108	1:17.755	1:18.327	26
11	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:18.432	1:17.846		20
12	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:17.890	1:17.988		20
13	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:18.407	1:18.082		20
14	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:18.335	1:18.196		23
15	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	1:18.585	1:18.356		21
16	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1:18.209	No time		10
17	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:18.741			11
18	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	1:18.745			11
19	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	1:19.332			10
20	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	1:19.928			9
21	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	1:20.133			9
22	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	1:21.732			9
		Q1 107% Time		1:22.985

Now you have seen the provisional grid for tomorrow’s Monaco Grand Prix, who do you expect to take the win? For me, I personally believe Rosberg is in with a great shout of taking the win. But that is providing he has a better start than Lewis, a clean race, no traffic in the pit lane or any other variable, of which there are many. So clearly it is still all to play for so I’ll see you tomorrow for the Monaco Grand Prix.