jenson grabs pole down under

[melbourne]

is it just me, or is f1 qualifying just plain boring?

i was watching the melbourne qualifying with a bunch of my cousins and uncles/aunties. normally everyone would discuss and comment on the cars, the drivers, and so on; instead, several times everyone was just quiet because there was just nothing to discuss. many were confused with the rules, while some simply dozed off.

the session only started to get exciting at the last five minutes of qualifying. massa's crash and montoya's spin were quite nice to watch, but there was more noise to be heard on jenson's surprising pole. that was the real excitement; maybe everyone was just quite happy to not see renaults in front.

the renaults are just behind button. given their superior start, i believe fisichella and alonso will be ahead of button by the end of the first lap. it will be interesting to see the fight between the two renault drivers, but i suspect we won't be seeing that as alonso will just make fisichella a fool and simply overtake him.

what will the mclaren do behind the renault? can we finally see some wheel to wheel action?

the toyotas are surprisingly up on pace, after their dismal showing in the first two races. they are the best performing bridgestone, with ralf schumacher qualifying in the third row, out-qualifying the ferrari. ferrari embarassingly didn't make the cut to the top ten. worse still, michael has no idea why.

as for how the others fared, here is the grid. michael moved into top ten because villeneuve was penalized for an engine change. nice qualifying effort by liuzzi, but bad job from nico. and what to say about poor old rubens? nothing really, just horrible.

for my prediction for tomorrow's race, the three drivers on the podium will be jenson, alonso, and kimi in no particular order. it may be possible for michael to finish top five, if the car can be fast enough.

finally, if the weather decides to play a part, we may see a very interesting race and surprising finishes.



previous posts:
sepang: sepang revealed more problems
sepang: engine changes dominate qualifying
bahrain: thrilling bahrain
bahrain: an exciting start to 2006


[tagged: honda, melbourne, jenson button, formula 1]