Rosberg Takes Sixth Pole Of The Season In The Brazilian Sun

Nov 14, 2015
3 min read

As the light at the end of the pitlane went green, it was a very quiet start to the session. Nearly five minutes in, Nico Hulkenberg was the first man to take to the track for Q1 on the prime tyre. Times over the course of the session tumbled as everyone came out on the circuit with different tyres.

With eight minutes to go of the session Fernando Alonso was asked to pull over immediately after Fernando called across the radio with calls of no power. This caused yellow flags, but his McLaren-Honda was recovered quickly to remove the danger.

Felipe Massa was also clearly blocked by Felipe Nasr on one of his final runs of the session. Luckily Massa had just enough time for one more attempt to survive. The incident is being investigated by the stewards.

As Q1 came to end. The five slowest knocked out were:

Pastor Maldonado

Jenson Button

Alexander Rossi

Will Stevens

Fernando Alonso

After Alonso was given a lift back to the pits by the medical car after relaxing by the side of the track, Q2 got underway with a few cars taking to the circuit.

Track temperatures were creeping up and Mercedes decided to get both cars out early to make the best of the conditions. Not a lot of times were set at the start of session; this was to ensure that only one run was being done to preserve the tyres for those who do make the top ten, as they must start the race on the tyre they do their best time on. Romain Grosjean also had an issue with his car on his final attempt of the session after spinning his Lotus through turn six.

Out in Q2 were:

Felipe Nasr

Carlos Sainz

Sergio Perez

Marcus Ericsson

Romain Grosjean

As Q3 began; no one left the garages straight away. Preserving tyres with high track temperatures was certainly the idea of many; especially for those who had only one set of soft tyres left.

Nico Rosberg was the first man out on track for the final session of qualifying and took provisional pole position after the first set of runs with Lewis Hamilton less than a tenth behind.

With three minutes of the session to go, all of the cars make their way out of their garages for the final showdown to see who would take pole position. Track temperatures were as high as 50 degrees, providing a tough challenge for the drivers to get their tyres in the right operating window.

Valtteri Bottas the first man to head out for the final runs of the session with Nico Rosberg following him out of the pitlane; as the runs unfolded it was Rosberg who improved his lap time by two tenths of a second to secure pole position for the sixth time this season ahead of his team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who was just less than a tenth of a second behind Rosberg.

It should be a close fight for the win tomorrow with Rosberg and Hamilton being so close all weekend together, but also keep an eye out for the other fights across the field with still positions in both championships to play for

Q3 Results:

1st: Rosberg (Mercedes) 1:11:282

2nd: Hamilton (Mercedes) + 0.078

3rd: Vettel (Ferrari) + 0.522

4th: Bottas (Williams) + 0.803

5th: Raikkonen (Ferrari) + 0.862

6th: Hulkenberg (Force India) + 0.983

7th: Kyvat (Red Bull) + 1.040

8th Massa (Williams) + 1.133

9th: Ricciardo (Red Bull) + 1.135

10th: Verstappen (Toro Rosso) +1.437