Brawn GP News

Monaco is the jewel in the crown of Formula one, cars sweep majestically down the waterfront past the yachts, through the incredible tight street circuit.  Often a giant killer, Monaco has produced highly unexpected results in the past and qualifying is so important because of the difficulty in overtaking.

In qualifying session one cars have 15 minutes to set lap times, at the end of 15 minutes the cars with the slowest time will be dropped.  Things started well for many drivers,  Lewis Hamilton initally set a quick time showing new form in the McLaren but in his second flying lap he braked badly in a corner and couldn’t stop the car in time.  The back slid round and hit the wall hard with retiring Lewis Hamilton.  At this point he was in 8th.  In the last few minutes of the session car after car beat his time dropping him to 15th.

A good first session for the Force India’s who for the first time were not dropped from qualifying one, however the Toyota’s who not so long ago were fighting for race wins had a terrible qualifying with Trulli and Glock in 19th and 20th respectively.

Qualifying 1

1. ROSBERG Williams 1m15.094s

2.  BUTTON Brawn 1m15.210s

3. WEBBER Red Bull 1m15.260s

4.  MASSA Ferrari 1m15.340s

5.  BARRICHELLO Brawn 1m15.425s

6.  KOVALAINEN McLaren 1m15.495s

7.  RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m15.746s

8. BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m15.834s

9. ALONSO Renault 1m15.898s

10. VETTEL Red Bull 1m15.915s

11. NAKAJIMA Williams 1m15.930s

12. PIQUET Renault 1m16.013s

13. FISICHELLA Force India 1m16.063s

14. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso 1m16.120s

15. SUTIL Force India 1m16.248s

Knocked out:

16. HAMILTON McLaren 1m16.264s

17. HEIDFELD BMW 1m16.264s

18. KUBICA BMW 1m16.405s

19. TRULLI Toyota 1m16.548s

20. GLOCK Toyota 1m16.788s

Qualifying 2

Qualifying two was not without incident either, at the last corner of the track Nelson Piquet also braked late and spun in the last corner.  The car narrowly missed the wall but Piquet took some time to get going again with yellow flags out on the track.  The Brawn duo of Button and Barrichello haven’t dominated qualifying as much as they had previously.  Button finished 2nd Qualifying in just 8th place, hardly a safe position and Barrichello 4th

Qualifying 2

1.  RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m14.514s

2.  KOVALAINEN McLaren 1m14.809s

3. WEBBER Red Bull 1m14.825s

4. BARRICHELLO Brawn 1m14.829s

5. ROSBERG Williams 1m14.846s

6. VETTEL Red Bull 1m14.879s

7.  MASSA Ferrari 1m15.001s

8. BUTTON Brawn 1m15.016s

9.  ALONSO Renault 1m15.200s

10. NAKAJIMA Williams 1m15.579s

Knocked out:

11. BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m15.833s

12. PIQUET Renault 1m15.837s

13. FISICHELLA Force India 1m16.146s

14. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso 1m16.281s

15. SUTIL Force India 1m16.545s

Qualifying 3

Qualifying 3 sees the cars with race fuel loads.  Traditionally in Monaco you want to pit as late as possible so that you have less risk of coming out of the pits among a crowd of cars.  However grid position will be just as important on this hard to overtake track so will cars fuel heavy of low?

Jenson Button puts in a brilliant lap to take pole just 2 tenths quicker than Raikkonenn in the Ferrari, sandwiched between the other Brawn of Rubens Barrichello. With Brawn’s, Ferrari’s and the Red Bull all up near the front it will be an exciting race tomorrow

Pole position shootout

1. BUTTON Brawn 1m14.902s

2.  RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m14.927s

3. BARRICHELLO Brawn 1m15.077s

4. VETTEL Red Bull 1m15.271s

5.  MASSA Ferrari 1m15.437s

6. ROSBERG Williams 1m15.455s

7.  KOVALAINEN McLaren 1m15.516s

8.  WEBBER Red Bull 1m15.653s

9.  ALONSO Renault 1m16.009s

10. NAKAJIMA  Williams 1m17.344s