Saturday, May 12, 2012

Hamilton on Pole, Heartbreak for Narain

Hamilton on Pole, Heartbreak for Narain

In the Spanish Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton scored the pole position in the dying seconds of the Q3. He was so low in fuel that he had to stop on the track after the qualifying and could not come back to the pitlane.

On the other hand, the lone Indian driver Narain Karthikeyan could only score 1:31.122 and was outside the 107% time. So he hasn't qualified for the race. He can only race on the discretion of the stewards. Considering that his time in Final Practice was within the 107% times and he was also better than his team mate and his team mate managed to qualify, so HRT will file an appeal for allowing Narain to race.

In the Q3, the drivers chose to do only one lap in the dying minutes of the qualifying. Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher and Kamui Kobayashi did not choose to set a time. Clearly they were trying to preserve their tires. Michael Schumacher who is known for his phenomenal starts, will hope to overtake a few cars during the start.

To the momentary delight of the partisan spanish crowd Fernando Alonso had scored the P1 time, however within seconds Pastor Maldonado and Lewis Hamilton bettered it.

Complete timings:


Qualifying
Sl. Driver Team Time Laps
1 Lewis Hamilton McLaren  1:21.707 17 laps
2 Pastor Maldonado Williams   1:22.285 19 laps
3 Fernando Alonso Ferrari  1:22.302 15 laps
4 Romain Grosjean Lotus  1:22.424 14 laps
5 Kimi Raikkonen Lotus  1:22.487 13 laps
6 Sergio Perez Sauber  1:22.533 14 laps
7 Nico Rosberg Mercedes  1:23.005 17 laps
8 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 14 laps
9 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 15 laps
10 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber 14 laps
11 Jenson Button McLaren  1:22.944 13 laps
12 Mark Webber Red Bull  1:22.977 8 laps
13 Paul de Resta Force India  1:23.125 14 laps
14 Nico Hulkenberg Force India  1:23.177 13 laps
15 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso  1:23.265 11 laps
16 Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso  1:23.442 11 laps
17 Felipe Massa Ferrari  1:23.444 12 laps
18 Bruno Senna Williams   1:24.981 8 laps
19 Vitaly Petrov Caterham  1:25.277 8 laps
20 Heikki Kovalainen Caterham  1:25.507 8 laps
21 Charles Pic Marussia  1:26.582 8 laps
22 Timo Glock Marussia  1:27.032 8 laps
23 Pedro de la Rosa HRT  1:27.555 6 laps
Narain Karthikeyan HRT  1:31.122 4 laps
Q1 107% Time 01:28.4

1 comment:

ArjunaUbacha said...

Narain Karthikeyan, to the delight of his many fans got the permission to race in the Spanish Grand Prix 2012.

Narain said "In the morning everything went smoothly but in the afternoon, with the first set of tyres I was pushing really hard and spun on turn 3 and, as a result, I flat-spotted a tyre so I had to come back into the grage. We were going to go on the second set of tyres but we discovered some problems and due to safety concerns, not only for myself but the others, we decided that the best thing was not to go back."

The HRT team sought permission from the stewards and the Stewards allowed Narain Karthikeyan to drive in tomorrows race because Narain had set times within the limit during the mornings practice session.

So Narain will start at the 24th position tomorrow.