This weekend is a very exciting weekend for the Formula 1 fraternity as the first round of the 2011 Formula 1 World Championship kicks start in Albert Park, Australia. The practice sessions were dominated by McLaren and Red Bull and the performance of the latter has translated into a pole position during today’s qualifying session.
The 2010 Constructor’s champion and its 2010 World Champion Sebastian Vettel clinched the top spot during qualifying ahead of McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton who set a time that was approximately 0.7 seconds off the pole sitter 1.23.529’s lap time. Vettel’s teammate, homeboy Mark Webber will start the race from third followed by Jenson Button in the other McLaren.
Ferrari’s World Champion driver Fernando Alonso settled with fifth place. Russia’s Vitaly Petrov finished in a promising sixth place for the Lotus Renault team while the other Malaysian-backed team, Mercedes GP has Nico Rosberg in seventh. Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari managed eight fastest and will start the race ahead of Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi and Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi.
Nick Heidfeld in the other Lotus Renault had to settle for 18th spot and despite a poor qualifying performance by the German who stands in for injured Robert Kubica, both Lotus Renault cars finished ahead of the Team Lotus duo. Heikki Kovalainen secured 19th ahead of teammate Jarno Trulli. The gap between Heidfeld and Kovalainen’s time is approximately two seconds, which means the gap between the 2010 rookies and their established rivals is still large. Futhermore, Heidfeld’s time is one second slower than 17th place man, Rubens Barrichello from Williams.
Just like last year, the final spots were taken up by Virgin and HRT drivers. You can check out the full qualifying results here.
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Good Race for Vettel…….bravo……
both Lotus team….yet to show they best …:P
Damn it and FXXX malaysia television tv1, tv2, ntv7 , 8tv
Why there is not any television broadcast of F1 this year besides Astro , damn frustrated!!!!
This happen for first time since 10 years, what a shame we have 2 malaysia team Lotus, mercedes……
why Petronas no sponsor free local TV broadcast this year ……WTH !!!!!
nice job petrov. no luck for heidfeld. keep it up in tomorow’s race.
My favourite team for 2011 is Red Bull and driver is Vettel.
Next time less talk and more work.
Talk like top 10, drive like…..
YEAAAAAHHH!!!
GO VETTEL GO!!
GO WEBBER GO!!
GO RED BULL GO!!
Oh my, Heidfeld is disappointing. That was seriously extremely close to being slower than those Tony’s Lotus’ boys. Petrov, good job, keep improving man!
Top Gear China first episode ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLiS986bcHw …
Top Gear Singapore coming soon!
seems like lotus-renault is better than team lotus..
“we are who we are”… guess he likes Ke$ha’s song after all lulzzz…
WHO IS THE BOSS la..
if kubica was there………the result wld be diff…..
Nahh…Heidfeld is a good driver..Heidfeld blamed his failure to get out of Q3 on traffic
no live f1 on tv
just streaming lah BBC
Martin brundle and david coulthard as main commentator also have eddie jordan
very informative and much better than astro espn broadcast
malaysian free TV is sucks big time
i did, luckily i still have 30%of my broadband usage
anyone got website to stream.
its not malaysia free tv sucks, its a monopolized game by those people.
Why still comparing TL with LRGP? LRGP is a well establish team and too long ago won under Fernando Alonso. They are clearly no match for TL. And if I remember correctly, TL never mentioned they will be better than LRGP. In fact, they are targeting Torro Rosso, Force India and Williams. Man, enough of this hatred. Let all of them race.
Agreed… Cheer for your team, no need to trash others.
Fuh fuh… am I supposed to terasa pedas here? :P
Anyway, you’re right. That is exactly why LRGP must be quicker than TL. I find it disappointing if a LRGP car is barely faster than a TL car. So the fault lies with the driver and maybe some reliability issues with his car.
Heidfeld is just strange. His track record is just not good, he’s like what, the most veteran driver without a single victory? It doesn’t do his nickname “Quick Nick” justice if he can’t break his own record by winning a race by the end of this year. But anyway, I’ll just wish him the best.
almost all teams have problem with tyre temperature
so basically it’s not the driver fault
so expect things will be better in sepang
Miche
al?
i don understand why nick hiedfeld is hired by renault to replace kubica? he drive not good enough.. petrov is better in result even he is new driver than nick… n this year i don know why i dont support Team Lotus.. but want to see schumacher come back as main rival.. now.. vettel is the best…
The reason for this is simple. The car was built around RObert Kubica therefore it might not suit the drive characteristics of Nick Heidfeld. A good example is when Massa was hit by a suspension bits from Barrichello and Fisichella drove till the end of the season to replace injured massa. Simply Fisichella could not drive as well as when he was in Force India as the car does not suit his driving characteristics. That;s why before the season there are testing to make sure that each car suits the individual driver perfectly.
almost all europe countries got live F1 on free tv. european really serius about F1. if malaysia wants to do better job in motorsports like F1, there should be live races on terestial channel.
yup..pretty disappointing from Nick. i was expecting him to secure at least sixth place. hmmm this year i would like to see a podium comeback from M.Shu and of coz my fabret driver Hamilton won 2011 f1.
most exciting driver i’d say Chandok..hahaha what a bollock..
HRT cant even make it into the 107% qualifying rule and their 2011 car is not even tested.
HRT – Hopeless Racing Team
truth to be told, I start to be skeptical about TL gonna go to midfield… but it might still be too early to indicate anything…
what so ever, the timing shows they are 2 sec slower than screwed up Heidfeld… and 3 sec slower than slowest Williams… which for me, not much improvement than their last year performance at the end of the season… or they did not run with full potential yet???
Bad…no live broadcast in malaysian tv…very bad ;-(..i dont subscribe starsport in astro….bad bad
Didn’t expect Lotus-Renault to win a podium stance… Congrats Petrov ! This would be a great start for “proton”