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F1 Qualifying – Australia 2009

Qualifying results for the 2009 Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, Melbourne

Here are the results for each of the three qualifying sessions, plus the starting order after penalties were applied. I am considering whether to post this for each F1 and IndyCar race this season, time permitting. Let me know what you think, is it better to get this info from the racing news sites?

Format: 3-round knockout losing 5 drivers per round, those 5 are locked in that position barring penalties. Times are deleted and the next round begins. In the final round the drivers carry the fuel they will start the race with. I’ll post each session so you can see the progression.

Qual 1
(20 mins, low fuel)
1. Barrichello (Brawn)
2. Button (Brawn)
3. Webber (Red Bull)
4. Glock (Toyota)
5. Heidfeld (BMW)
6. Massa (Ferrari)
7. Rosberg (Williams)
8. Raikkonen (Ferrari)
9. Kubica (BMW)
10. Vettel (Red Bull)
11. Alonso (Renault)
12. Nakajima (Williams)
13. Kovalainen (McLaren)
14. Trulli (Toyota)
15. Hamilton (McLaren)
Knocked out:
16. Buemi (Toro Rosso)
17. Piquet (Renault)
18. Fisichella (Force India)
19. Sutil (Force India)
20. Bourdais (Toro Rosso)


Qual 2
(15 mins, low fuel)
1. Barrichello
2. Button
3. Vettel
4. Rosberg
5. Kubica
6. Webber
7. Trulli
8. Glock
9. Massa
10. Raikkonen
Knocked out:
11. Heidfeld
12. Alonso
13. Nakajima
14. Kovalainen
15. Hamilton (no time – gearbox)

Qual 3
(10 mins, race fuel)
1. Button
2. Barrichello
3. Vettel
4. Kubica
5. Rosberg
6. Glock
7. Massa
8. Trulli
9. Raikkonen
10. Webber

Penalties
Hamilton – gearbox changed after qualifying, drop 5 positions. 15th to 20th.
Trulli and Glock – wings found to be flexing illegally, qualifying times deleted, cars may start at the back if the wing is corrected.

Starting Order
(new for 2009: weights are declared after qualifying)
1. Button 664.5kg
2. Barrichello 666.5kg
3. Vettel 657kg
4. Kubica 650kg
5. Rosberg 657kg
6. Massa 654kg
7. Raikkonen 655.5kg
8. Webber 662kg
9. Heidfeld 691.5kg
10. Alonso 680.7kg
11. Nakajima 685.3kg
12. Kovalainen 690.6kg
13. Buemi 675.5kg
14. Nelson Piquet 694.1kg
15. Giancarlo Fisichella 689kg
16. Adrian Sutil 684.5kg
17. Sebastien Bourdais 662.5kg
18. Lewis Hamilton 655kg
19. Jarno Trulli 660kg
20. Timo Glock 670kg

The Brawns are exceptionally fast even on a heavier fuel load – will they have the reliability though? What of Vettel up front, surely Kubica will have something to say about that? And I’m still not counting out the Ferraris who are fast on longer runs through a stint.
The Toyotas were showing upper-midfield pace so ought to find their way through the field well enough, but I’m not so sure Hamilton will be able to!

Turns 1 and 3 at Albert Park always provides butt-clenching action as we hope nobody crashes or destroys front wings, concerns magnified with this year’s wing regulations. Let’s hope they make some good clean passes!

F1 Preview: Australian Grand Prix 2009

Finally, after all the waiting, it’s here!!

* * * *
FIA Formula 1 World Championship
– ING Australian Grand Prix (1/17)
– Albert Park
– Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
– www.formula1.com
– F1.com track map / F1Fanatic’s track guide
– Live timing (Java required, free registration required, worth it)

* WARNING *
In the UK the clocks will change on Sunday morning. At 2am GMT we will jump to 3am British Summer Time (BST). Thus Qualifying and Race start at the same time locally but one hour apart for us.

Preview
Welcome to the slightly delayed preview to the Australian GP!

Circuit
Albert Park is a semi-street track set around a lake in the city of Melbourne. It isn’t a traditional street track, being as it runs through a park and the barriers aren’t always up tight to the racing surface. The racetrack isn’t as bumpy as your average street track – although this year the drivers seem to have found more bumps than usual.

The deceptively fast first corner is always a concern, more so this year with the extended width of the front wings this year. You know how drivers like to win the race at the first corner? Well this is the first corner of the Championship and some of them think they can win the title in the first corner!

Of course this is followed up by a medium/long straight into the tight heavy braking area of turn 3. Some guys who were careful in turn 1 decide turn 3 is the better opportunity, sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong. The guys will need to temper their enthusiasm to avoid crashes!

Here are two onboard laps to refamiliarise yourself with the layout, assuming you haven’t already been watching Free Practice!

The first is Jenson Button’s 2006 pole lap described by Martin Brundle, then of ITV:

Here is Kimi Raikkonen’s 2007 pole lap described by David Hobbs of SPEED:

Rule Changes
There are far too many variables to discuss with regards to the new rules and the time for explaining them in long reams of text is over. What we do know is that both Ferraris, both McLarens, both Renaults and Nick Heidfeld of BMW will all be using KERS this weekend. Force India, BrawnGP and Toyota say they are not running KERS, and the remainder are tight-lipped on the subject with speculation that Williams and others may be running it.

If you’ve been away from all the pre-season hype you may be aware of some major changes this year but perhaps not the specifics. Everyone else could probably use a refresher on the eve of the first race and this video is ideal for the purpose:

(7m40s, Inside Track from SidepodcastTV
you may prefer to try the low-res version)

Form
BrawnGP have been running exceptionally well in testing and have carried that into Free Practice. McLaren and Ferrari are stuck in the midfield among suggestions of sandbagging, running heavy to mask their true pace. I’m not sure this is true. Ferrari seem to have good speed over a long run if not over a lap, but they aren’t at the absolute cutting edge of lap time. McLaren appear to be struggling much more.

Williams are also fast however this has happened with Williams over the last few years, they are quick at Albert Park and then have a dire race in Sepang. Let’s hope the latter trend is put to rest this season. Interestingly Toyota and Force India have shown promising form in practice.

What is clear is the grid is very well shaken up and yet very close together, with only 2 seconds separating front to back in Friday FP2. The combination of all the different factors makes it incredibly difficult to predict what will happen on both Saturday and Sunday, something we haven’t been able to say about F1 for a very long time!! I think we’re going to enjoy this season.


UK TV
Q: BBC One will air Qualifying live at 5am GMT Saturday, session begins at 6am. Rerun at 1pm.
R: BBC One will air the Race live at 6am BST Sunday, race starts at 7am. Rerun at 1pm.
H: BBC Three will air 1hr Highlights at 7pm BST Sunday.

US TV
Q: Speed will air Qualifying live at 2am ET, it seems they are jumping straight in to the green flag unless I have my times wrong.
R: Speed will air the Race live at 1:30am ET with the race to start at 2am. Rerun at 4:30pm.

Canada should get coverage on TSN featuring BBC commentary.
EDIT – you used to be able to choose Speed but you may want to see this link and check what you can see at the time, although I’m not sure why you’d voluntarily sit through all their ads.

Race Notes
I will again be writing notes during the race for upload straight after the event. I won’t be doing a live blog, it’s more a journal of noteworthy events which is written live, checked for editing and uploaded shortly after the podium ceremony. If you’re sitting here killing time before Qual or Race because of the timezones, you can click here to see notes on previous races.

Live Comments
This season I will also be in the Sidepodcast.com Live Comments for all races and most qualifying sessions. Fire up the Live Commenting Live..Thing at the appointed time and join the appropriate thread at the top of the screen, then just type away! I’ve been keeping up with the comments during the latter end of the off-season, but not a live F1 GP before – it should be fun. You’re welcome to join us as long as you keep the sweary exclamations away.. I think I’ll struggle with that bit.. I may be quiet during races while I concentrate on the Race Notes, however I should be active during qualifying.

I will of course have TwitterFox to hand for those all-important tweets.

Support events
V8 Supercars*, Australian GT, Australian Formula Ford, Aussie Racing Cars, Historic Formula 5000, Mini Challenge, Minardi F1x2 two-seaters, Ultimate Speed Comparison (road car vs V8 Supercar vs 2008 BMW F1 car)
(these events are spread across the weekend)

Weekend Preview: 28-29 March 2009

This blog covers a great many racing series to a greater or lesser degrees, and as regular visitors know this Weekend Preview strand is intended as a ‘broad brush’ to briefly touch on as many races happening in a given weekend as possible.

However, the main focus of the blog is Formula 1. For this reason I have elected to write separate preview posts for each F1 round of this season as well as ‘special events’ such as the Indy 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Australian GP preview follows shortly, in the meantime here is a quick run-down of what else is happening in the world of racing this weekend.

* * * *
Feature Event

FIA Formula 1 World Championship
– ING Australian Grand Prix (1/17)
– Albert Park
– Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
– www.formula1.com
– Track map

I will post a full preview shortly!

Support events:
V8 Supercars*, Australian GT, Australian Formula Ford, Aussie Racing Cars, Historic Formula 5000, Mini Challenge, Minardi F1x2 two-seaters, Ultimate Speed Comparison (road car vs V8 Supercar vs 2008 BMW F1 car)

* non-championship races billed as a manufacturer battle between Ford and Holden. This has to be one of the best support race bills of the entire F1 season, and you can add several air displays from the Royal Australian Air Force into the mix too.

Absolutely brilliant that they’ve included the old F5000 cars for this year. I’ve not seem them myself, but hear they’re quite a sight! A packed programme of events as always at Albert Park.

* * *
Other Events:

NASCAR Sprint Cup
– Goody’s Fast Relief 500 (6/36)
– Martinsville Speedway
– Martinsville, Virginia, United States
– www.nascar.com

Another short track for the Cup boys.

UK TV: LIVE on Sky Sports 3 from 7pm BST Sunday.
US TV: LIVE on FOX from 1:30pm ET Sunday.

Support races: Camping World Truck Series (Saturday)

Stock Car V8 Brasil
– Interlagos (1/12)
– Autodromo Carlos Pace
– Interlagos, Sao Paulo Brazil
– www.stockcar.globo.com

Brazil’s answer to NASCAR? The first race of the season on the F1 track at Interlagos.

* * * *
Notes
I believe that’s all there is this weekend. You’ll thank me for the F1 split-out in a few weeks when this post gets busy!

TMR Gets Airtime on Sidepodcast

That’s right, I guested on my very first podcast!

I appeared alongside many others on Sidepodcast.com‘s recent Episode #97 with a modest little prediction for the upcoming Australian Grand Prix.

The podcast featured predictions from a whole host of regular commenters from Sidepodcast’s Live Comments, many of whom have their own blogs which I recommend you check out (I’ll be updating my links over the weekend).

If some of them seem at ease on the calls it’s because they regularly call in to the various podcasts produced by SPC. This was my first phone-in to any show anywhere!

You can listen via two methods:

– If you’ve got less than an hour I highly recommend you listen to the full Episode as it weighs in at a perfectly-formed 43 minutes, an ideal length in my opinion because you don’t have to set aside your evening to hear it! There are a variety of options for listening in, just go to the page to find out more. The predictions appear in the ‘Feedback’ section but don’t worry about that, you’ll come to it soon enough.

– If you’re more pushed for time please check out the 6 minute Predictions Montage.

While you are on the site take a listen to this week’s hilarious Panel featuring guest host Gavin Brown! The podcast edition should appear later this week so look out for it.

There are also a variety of F1 Season Previews to look out for as well as an hour-long fascinating chat with F1 scribe Joe Saward who is the man behind GrandPrix.com as well as being a published author of racing books. (Meesh, if you’re reading this, he talks about the trials of being a journalist in the F1 media centre – some things don’t change, even in F1!).
Even if you don’t listen to any of the other items above, at least make sure you listen to that discussion. It’s worth it.

SPC Crash Course
These guys ‘live comment’ everything. That is to say, a ‘live blog’ but with all the commenters joining in with conversation in real time. You can’t quite imagine it until you see it, so go there now!

To keep up with chat between events, go here: Doohickey
For commenting during events, go here: LCLT

Just keep it clean and keep an eye on what thread you’re posting in and you’ll be fine.

Warning: This will take over your life. It has mine – and I don’t see that as a bad thing. That’s when you know you’re hooked.

I will be in the comments for all F1 races and for as many qualifying sessions as I can make. During races I may be a little quiet as I’ll be taking notes for this blog, though I do hope to throw my oar in from time to time. These guys do the practice sessions as well, unfortunately I have to work. Grr, damned work, grr.

PS – I still hate my voice