Rosberg On Pole Ahead of Hamilton
- Oct 31, 2015
- 2 min read
Nico Rosberg was the man to beat in qualifying, having looked fast throughout practice. His time of 1:19.480 was just under two tenths of a second ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was 3rd.
Daniil Kvyat was running ahead of Daniel Ricciardo all the way through qualifying, despite a last-gasp from the Australian which put him just a thousandth of a second off his team-mate. They line up 4th and 5th ahead of the two Williams' of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa, and Toro Rosso's Max Verstappen.
The first runs in the top 10 shoot-out were critical. The tyres need an extra warm up lap and the track grip decreased as the session progressed, meaning no driver improved on their second runs. This was detrimental to Force India who did not go out for the first runs, leaving them 9th and 10th with Sergio Perez ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, having expected to be challenging for the top 5.
Carlos Sainz was 11th ahead of the two Lotuses with Romain Grosjean leading Pastor Maldonado, and Marcus Ericsson in 14th. The big story of Q2, however, was Kimi Raikonnen in 15th. The Finn had a spin at turn 1 which looked to be caused by a brake issue, and he could not get out again in the session. There is more pain to come for Raikonnen; he takes a 5-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.
Felipe Nasr and Fernando Alonso were Q1 casualties ahead of the tow Manor cars of Alexander Rossi and Will Stevens, although will start 19th with his 15-place grid penalty for engine and gearbox changes. Jenson Button did not take part in qualifying when his engine misfired before the session started. The Brit was already starting from the back with two new complete power units giving him a 50-place penalty.
Comments