| Saturday Qualifying – Hamilton Takes Pole Ahead of Massa, Kovalainen
Lewis Hamilton beat Felipe Massa to pole position for the German Grand Prix after a thrilling battle between the pair throughout qualifying.
The duo had topped a segment apiece in Q1 and Q2, before Massa put his Ferrari on provisional pole with his first flying lap of Q3, beating Hamilton by 0.4 seconds at that stage.
Massa then dug deeper and improved to 1:15.859 with his second lap, putting himself half a second clear of the field and looking assured of pole.
But Hamilton made an even greater gain, going over one second quicker than his previous run to beat Massa by nearly 0.2 seconds.
Heikki Kovalainen went off in the stadium section on his first run, then recovered to take third at the end of the session, alongside another remarkable qualifying effort by Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, who took fourth.
Fernando Alonso (Renault) nearly found himself eliminated in Q1, having fallen right down to 17th before leaping back up the order with his last lap.
He then comfortably made it through to the top ten, and put himself in a provisional second place after his first lap before ending up fifth ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, who had an extremely muted session and only managed sixth…(read full qualifying report here)
Pos Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Laps
1. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:15.218 1:14.603 1:15.666 13
2. Massa Ferrari 1:14.921 1:14.747 1:15.859 16
3. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 1:15.476 1:14.855 1:16.143 17
4. Trulli Toyota 1:15.560 1:15.122 1:16.191 21
5. Alonso Renault 1:15.917 1:14.943 1:16.385 19
6. Raikkonen Ferrari 1:15.201 1:14.949 1:16.389 19
7. Kubica BMW Sauber 1:15.985 1:15.109 1:16.521 20
8. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:15.900 1:15.481 1:17.014 20
9. Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:15.532 1:15.420 1:17.244 22
10. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:15.975 1:15.338 1:17.503 20
11. Glock Toyota 1:15.560 1:15.508 17
12. Heidfeld BMW Sauber 1:15.596 1:15.581 14
13. Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:15.863 1:15.633 16
14. Button Honda 1:15.993 1:15.701 15
15. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:15.927 1:15.858 15
16. Nakajima Williams-Toyota 1:16.083 10
17. Piquet Renault 1:16.189 7
18. Barrichello Honda 1:16.246 10
19. Sutil Force India-Ferrari 1:16.657 10
20. Fisichella Force India-Ferrari 1:16.963 10
Pretty good lap from Lewis, another pole for him and also good efforts from Heikki, Trulli and Alonso but dear oh dear! That looked like a nightmare of a car to control for Kimi, what a shame as it’s his worst qualifying result so far this year. He seemed to have a huge balance issue and sequences of understeer turning into oversteer. As soon as he was fuelled in for his last flying lap, the car looked much better and all Kimi could do was to make sure he doesn’t literally fly off the track. There was definately an issue all weekend then, but I’m slightely confused because Kimi seemed quite optimistic earlier. And Stefano Domenicali seemed very hesitant to criticise Kimi and was rather coy on their chances tomorrow. "We’ll see, we’ll see" is all he kept saying to our ITV pit lane reporter. If Kimi is fuelled very, very heavily compared to his teammate and is predicting a hot, dry race then perhaps we too can be optimistic for him.
Kimi has two cars that he really doesn’t need in his way, the Renault and Toyota. The start will be important then, and as we’ve seen a few times this year Kimi’s never really been able to get a good start, being blocked most of the time. Let’s wait and see then. Keep Flying Kimi – I’m sorry that your wings seem to be tied down but you’ll get through it! | Qualifying Quotes – Ferrari Remain Calm on Race Chances
Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali is far from distraught about his team’s failure to capture pole position for the German Grand Prix – claiming that the consistency of their F2008 may yet pay dividends in the race:
"We need to stay cool as always," he explained. "We need to understand and see. We will see what we can do for tomorrow."
Speaking to ITV about Raikkonen’s performance, he said: "It was not really a perfect lap so we have to see. But, the important thing is that the pace is consistent. That is the most important factor for the race tomorrow."
Team Quotes, Kimi "a struggle all weekend long"
Felipe Massa – 2nd: "I am pleased with this result. Of course you’d always prefer to be on pole position, but all weekend long we have been trading fastest times during the sessions and, in the end, our main rivals managed to find a little extra, even if the fuel load is an unknown quantity. It will be a very difficult race: our aim is still to win, but it will be important anyway to pick up many points. We must try to get a good start and make the most of what we have."
Kimi Raikkonen – 6th: "All weekend long, we have been struggling a bit to find a good set-up for the car. At the end of yesterday, it seemed we were on the right road and this morning we tried to improve still further down this path, but it was not the right one. Then, in qualifying, we went reasonably well with low fuel, but in the final session, the car was not as good. Clearly sixth place is not satisfying and tomorrow we won’t be in for an easy time, but it’s definitely not the end of the world. It will be a long race tomorrow and that’s when the points are allocated. For our part, we will do all we can to get a good finish position."
Luca Baldisserri: "Felipe produced a fine qualifying performance and is in a good position for the race. A shame for Kimi, who didn’t manage to find the best set-up for his car and will have to start from the third row: we will have to investigate what happened. To get a complete picture of this afternoon, in terms of tomorrow’s race, one has to take into account the usual parameters and the fact that this track allows for more strategic flexibility than usual. The F2008 has a good pace over a long run and we will try and make the most of that to come home with a good result."
| Video – Kimi’s Qualifying Laps in Session 3
http://www.viddler.com/simple/108da490/ http://www.viddler.com/simple/ff25e553/
FUCK ISRAEL 