UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Kovalainen by a mile

Webber on front row

Qualifying for the British Grand prix at Silverstone was always approached with one eye on the weather, and when the lights went green for the opening session the track flooded wit cars in order to avoid the oncoming showers.

The rain came, late in the session but quite heavy, and ruined the chances of anyone in the drop zone at that point, The track was clear again with a few minutes to go, but by then it was too late for anyone to make a serious improvement. and hence we lost the two Force India’s, both Honda’s – no surprise from those four – and Nico Rosberg in the Williams, the German complaining of a handling problem.

Session two dawned dry and breezy, and remained that way. It was curious, though, to see the two Ferrari’s struggle through by a merest fraction at a circuit where they had been expected to dominate, while the McLaren and BMW runners took up the first four positions with ease.

Losers here were Nakajima in the second Williams, Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock for Toyota, Sebastien Bourdais in the STR and an unfortunate David Coulthard who failed by a few one-hundredths, as is often the case these days.

The final shoot-out saw Robert Kubica and Lewis Hamilton take early excursions across the grass; Kubica did not get another run and will start tenth, while Hamilton made it back to the pits and lived to fight again.

Meanwhile Kimi Raikkonen had – surprisingly – set the pace, with others threatening but not stringing entire laps together, and it was only when Mark Webber – quick all weekend in the Red Bull – took two tenths out of the Finns time in the dying seconds that he looked threatened.

That was not all, though, as Heikki Kovalainen – without doubt the form man this weekend so far – was on an absolute flyer, and crossed the line shortly after Webber to steal his first pole position from the Australian, by a distance his race engineer described as ‘a mile, or half a second in real terms’.

Raikkonen was thus pushed down to third, and despite a frantic late effort Lewis Hamilton failed to beat the Ferraris best time by a tenth and will start alongside Raikkonen in fourth.

Nick Heidfeld had a good session and will start fifth in the BMW, with Fernando Alonso alongside him, and Nelson Piquet – in the second Renault – will be joined by Sebastian Vettel on row four.

Surprise of the session was the lack of pace of Felipe Massa, the World Championship leader only managing ninth, with Robert Kubica starting alongside him on row five.

An interesting race is in prospect, with the big question being how much fuel the front row runners are carrying. One suspects that McLaren – and Kovalainen particularly – may have this one in the bag tomorrow.

Written: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:19:14