Hamilton and Maldonado share the front row in Spain

2012 Spanish Grand Prix qualifying

May 12, 2012 at 2:12 pm by Keith Collantine

Lewis Hamilton claimed his third pole position of the year and his first ever at the Circuit de Catalunya.

He will share the front row of the grid for the Spanish Grand Prix will Wiliams driver Pastor Maldonado.

Fernando Alonso took third at home in front of the two Lotuses.

Q1

With the soft tyre offering an improvement of over a second per lap over the hard tyre, and the top 14 cars covered by a second in practice, it was clear that none of the front runners would be able to get away with not running the soft tyre in Q1.

Red Bull accepted the inevitable and didn’t even bother to send Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber out for a run on hard tyres at the beginning of the session, holding back until the final six minutes, then heading out on softs.

Even Lewis Hamilton, who was fastest to begin with, decided to use a set of softs to guarantee his place in Q2. His lap of 1’22.583 was seven-tenths faster than anyone else could manage.

The contest to escape Q1 was as close and fraught as usual. Jean-Eric Vergne looked on course to drop out early again when he failed to improve with his last effort.

But he still had Bruno Senna behind him, and the Williams driver had a scruffy middle sector on his final lap. He never made it to the finishing line, spinning off at turn 12, letting Vergne off the hook.

Narain Karthikeyan only completed four laps and his best effort was outside of the 107% time by 1.8 seconds.

Drivers eliminated in Q1

18	Bruno Senna	Williams-Renault	1’24.981
19	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham-Renault	1’25.277
20	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham-Renault	1’25.507
21	Charles Pic	Marussia-Cosworth	1’26.582
22	Timo Glock	Marussia-Cosworth	1’27.022
23	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT-Cosworth	1’27.555
24	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	1’31.122

Q2

Hamilton avoided having to make a second run in Q2 – his first effort of 1’22.465 was good enough to secure him a place in the final ten.

Webber also tried to do a single run but paid the price – he was shuffled down to 12th as the others improved. Jenson Button was another surprise eliminated despite doing a pair of runs, as he continued to struggle with understeer in his car.

Lotus and Toro Rosso only did single runs, coming out late in the session. The Lotus pair made it through but both Toro Rossos were eliminated.

Neither Force India driver made it through to Q3 and Felipe Massa was also eliminated – his lap 0.6s slower than team mate Alonso’s.

Pastor Maldonado was the only driver to beat Hamilton’s time, ending Q2 fastest after his team mate had been knocked out in Q1.

Kamui Kobayashi grabbed a place in Q3 but wasn’t able to make use of it – a hydraulic problem forced him to stop at turn three on his way back to the pits.

Drivers eliminated in Q2

11	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1’22.944
12	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1’22.977
13	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1’23.125
14	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1’23.177
15	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’23.265
16	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’23.442
17	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1’23.444

Q3

Vettel queued up at the exit of the pits as he waited for the final ten minutes of qualifiyng to begin. But after taking to the track he returned to his garage without setting a time, apparently expecting many other drivers would also not set times.

Hamilton went out next and did set a time. He was followed by the two Mercedes drivers – Rosberg taking second place, Schumacher also pitting without setting a time.

Now the session started to liven up. Fernando Alonso headed out in the Ferrari and produced a superb lap to beat Hamilton’s time. Neither of the Lotuses could beat it, Grosjean edging Raikkonen.

But Maldonado could, and for a few seconds the Williams driver was on pole position with a lap of 1’22.285.

However Hamilton had returned to the circuit, and produced a blistering lap of 1’21.707 to claim pole position by half a second.

Hamilton hit trouble on his return to the pits, his engineer telling him to stop on his in-lap due to an unspecified problem with the car.

Top ten in Q3

1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1’21.707
2	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1’22.285
3	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1’22.302
4	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1’22.424
5	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus-Renault	1’22.497
6	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	1’22.533
7	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1’23.005
8	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	No time
9	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	No time
10	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	No time

2012 Spanish Grand Prix

Browse all 2012 Spanish Grand Prix articles

Share this with your friends:

155 comments on Hamilton and Maldonado share the front row in Spain

ducatiusa (@ducatiusa) said on 12th May 2012, 17:29

it sure will be a great race. Hamilton has got everything to lose and Alonso look great on hard tires My $ is on alonso because he will give everything then some since it’s his home gp. I CAN T WAIT.

Glenn (@glennb) said on 12th May 2012, 17:31

Seems there may be the chance of rain sunday. That would be the end for all the different tyre strategies that were going to unfold. I’m still interested to see what RBR can take away from the weekend. Very strange qualifying strategy indeed…

BBQ2 said on 12th May 2012, 17:35

MASSA Vs. HAMILTON 2011:
Seeing Massa today and his problems and the call for him to relinquish his seat, whose “race should be destroyed now?” I still cannot forgive Smedley for that egregious attempt to ruin a driver’s race!

Now, as PM already wrote:”Massa could line up collecting unemployment benefit from Rio” (not really how he wrote it but there you go ;-))

Whiplash is not happy because his “intelligent and smooth driver” could not make Q3 thereby making him look useless.

Mikeycool said on 12th May 2012, 17:38

Lewis may lose pole for not having enough fuel in the car at the end. Lets hope thats not the case. But most likely he will.

Pamphlet (@pamphlet) said on 12th May 2012, 17:42

I’m sorry, Massa, but your days are numbered. Holy ****, Alonso P3.

However, Massa being 17th is the only thing that stops this from being a sweet, sweet dream. Alonso P3? Button P11? Webber P12? MALDONADO P2?! Oh my goodness.

f1alex (@f1alex) said on 12th May 2012, 18:09

@keithcollantine Just out of curiosity, If Hamilton is penalised how will it affect the predictions of this race? If Lewis gets the penalty will he still be counted as the polesitter in terms of the predictions championship? :)

Monosodico (@monosodico) said on 12th May 2012, 18:29

what kind of joke McLaren had become?, terrible pit stops, jeopardizing lewis pole not adding enough fuel, weird strategies, I’m losing the few respect I had for M. Witshmarh, just talk , talk and talk and no results.

StefMeister (@stefmeister) said on 12th May 2012, 18:43

Regarding Hamilton & the possibility of him losing pole, Here is the exact wording of the regulation regarding fuel samples & getting back to the pits.

Article 6.6.2 of the 2012 Technical regulations:

Competitors must ensure that a one litre sample of fuel may be taken from the car at any time during the Event.

Except in cases of force majeure (accepted as such by the stewards of the meeting), if a sample of fuel is required after a practice session the car concerned must have first been driven back to the pits under its own power.

James Allen has said that Lewis had 1.3Ltrs of fuel left in the car when he stopped which wasn’t enough to have driven back to the pits & still had the required 1ltr of fuel left in the car.

Seems fairly clear that unless there was a genuine technical problem with the car they have failed to comply with the above regulation & they will be lucky to avoid some form of penalty (Deletion of his fastest Q3 time under the rules I believe).

StefMeister (@stefmeister) said on 12th May 2012, 18:45

Jake Humphrey

I’m hearing Williams are on pole and Lewis starts at the back…nothing official yet…

- StefMeister (@stefmeister) said on 12th May 2012, 18:47
  
  Thats now been made official, Lewis has been sent to the back of the grid as McLaren did not put enough fuel in the car for the qualifying lap & and stopped car deliberately to ensure it had sample.
  
SPIDERman (@spiderman) said on 12th May 2012, 19:23

the stewards will always hit Hamilton and Mclaren very hard. IAM not surprised.
hamilton should consider going to drive NASCARS. in the USA.

- SPIDERman (@spiderman) said on 12th May 2012, 19:25
  
  HERE is the link from autosport…hamilton disqualified from qualifying….very harsh penalty indeed…
  
  http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/99564
  
  - SPIDERman (@spiderman) said on 12th May 2012, 19:32
    
    more from bbc sport…
    
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/18047760
    
Palle (@palle) said on 12th May 2012, 19:32

He will share the front row of the grid for the Spanish Grand Prix will Wiliams driver Pastor Maldonado.
Should be “with Williams”.

AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner) said on 12th May 2012, 22:17

Good quali session today. A few real surprises. It was strange in that regard. I think we’re in for a brilliant show tomorrow folks!

Shimks (@shimks) said on 12th May 2012, 22:31

Imagine what could have been if Williams had kept Hulkenberg…

Mark lewington said on 13th May 2012, 12:49

F1 FIA Stewards feedback Your all IDIOTS, really think about the Hamilton decision…