The Singapore GP qualifying couldn’t have gone a lot worse for championship contenders Brawn, with points leader Jenson Button and challenger Rubens Barichello ending the day a long way behind both rival Red Bulls.
Button had been complaining about car set-up all day, and although he looked promising at the end of Q1 finishing second behind eventual pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton, he couldn’t find the pace in Q2 and ended down in 12th.
The last time Jenson started a race in this sort of position – 14th at the Belgian GP – he was taken out by Renault rookie Romain Grosjean on the first lap, so he’s in a terribly dangerous place to start tomorrow Grand Prix.
Barrichello had a lucky escape, as he crashed with less than 30 seconds to go of Q3, which red-flagged the session and halted anyone else from pushing him further down the field.
As it is, Rubens starts from 10th after receiving a five place drop penalty for having to change his gearbox.
Which all in all is fantastic news for both Red Bulls, Sebastian Vettel starting second and Mark Webber fourth. As they’re respectively 26 and 28.5 points behind Button, they are certainly going the right way this weekend to keep themselves in championship contention.
Let’s hope tomorrow’s race is as exciting as today’s qualifying.
Check full results on BBC Sport’s site, and then leave your thoughts on quali and the race here.
Is Button actually choking? And on which lap will the first safety car appear?
my take is different.
barrichello crashed on purpose because:
- he secured a grid position ahead of button (he was going to be out qualified at least by three other drivers)
- he prevented one of the red bulls to be on pole (both vettel and webber were on their last flying lap when he crashed)
- he secured his seat in brown for next season (“if you fire me, i’m gonna say you ordered me to crash to prevent a redbull front line”)
They just spend the 2008 Ferarri-McLaren Fight developing a new car, that put them first but now all the teams (except Ferrari
) improve their paces so dominance it’s over.
I think that the Pace car will be the first one on crossing the line this race….
I dunno if that one will be looked into by the stewards, he did crash while a RedBull was on a hot lap. I was predicting Vettel from Hamilton then Rosberg in top3 on my Twitter etc, and while I still got the right 3 guys, I think I would have had them in right order too. Also it minimised the damage from his 5 place penalty.
Whether it was actually on purpose as per the Renault case? I doubt it.
Piquet was a young guy protecting his contract with Renault (I’m glad he got immunity to be honest, Flavio and Symonds basically forced him into that position) and with a career to look forward to, Barrichello is coming to the end of his anyway even if he does drive next year, has a much wiser more experienced head on his shoulders and I don’t think he would be that stupid when all eyes are on the sport because of last year’s crash.
I hope we’re not gonna get to the situation where everybody that crashes is accused by someone of doing it deliberately… and we do NOT want that kind of atmosphere in F1.
That ended well for Hamilton, saved him fuel as well as gifting him the pole (not saying he wouldnt have gotten it anyways), could have been a lot worse if it hadnt been red flagged.
Red Bull might be able to bring themselves back into the title fight this race, or at least put themselves back in contention. Brawn has to pray for a miracle. Should be a good race
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mm…
Top 8:
Vettel
Hamilton
Webber
Rosberg
Kovalinen
Alonso
Trulli
Glock
Well done Lewis, great job, but what happened to Fissi?
It wasnt on purpose, you know how much damage he did to that car, the mechanics are going to be working all night (day?). I think Hamilton had the jump on Vettel pace wise, and would have still had pole. I have no idea how Rosberg.
And stop looking for crashes that you think are on purpose. They are a rareity.
Rosberg was already ahead of Barrichello in the qualifying so he couldn’t have pushed him down in the field even more.
FIRST!!!!!
I think taht Barichelo crashed his Brown car (ive always wondered why its white) to stop an all RedBul front row and to help gods gift to humnity, Lewisham Ilton to get pole…I like him, and I hope he wins!
@Oi – totally fair point! It was all so manic I confused myself slightly. Have change the copy accordingly. Cheers!
Hmmm unexpected indeed, but who knows, anything can happen and a safety car is very likely.
Haven’t really been paying attention to the GP this year… whatever happened to Kimi? He was so good last year at the Singapore GP. Did they screw with his pay?
I think we all are getting a bit paranoid. On TV it could be clearly seen that Rubens pushed a tiny little bit too hard and couldn’t compensate for the ensuing drift.
On Dutch TV they stated that Rubens had to start from the pits btw, as the cars cannot be touched between Q3 and the race. As there is extensive damage, they have to get the car running again.
How do we know that it wasnt Mercedes in barichelo’s ear telling him to crash so that lewis would keep pole?
WE WILL NEVER KNOW!
Anyway vettel would be second no matter what because lewis on sunday will have KERS.
Come on people, stop it with the “crashing on purpose” thing.
Don’t let the stupidity of 3 men (Briatore, Piquet & Symmonds) ruin an excellent on-track F1 season.
damn straight trujo
what is happening to ferrari each time a worse performance.
i can forgive fisico but kimi it s really a shame.
i think it s time for ferrari to get rid of him
and try new pilots.
why to spend 26 m of euro at year for a pilot that never shone in ferrari.
it is time for ferrari to wake up and try a joung pilot or spend money for someone like alonso/lewis
a driver can (or atleast pretend to) crash without any outside assistance. anyone remember Monaco 06? Shumi did it to take pole. Awwww, he was brilliant, that man. anyway…….it does’nt matter who crashed and where they ended up, coz all of this is working well for Jenson and he’s pretty much guaranteed to maintain the 14 point gap.
What I want to see is Nico overtake Vettel and battle it out with Lewis (for obvious reasons).
P.S: I think if Ferrari decides they no longer need the services of Kimi, McLaren should try and grab him. No, really. I mean it! If that works out, they’d be in for a sweet season.
The winner will probably be Hamilton or Rosberg. Both Vettel and Webber were sliding really close to the walls on their laps and they may cause a safety car.
Top 3 should just be an inverse of last years with Alonso coming third.
Button and Barrichello will probably fight Raikonnen for the last point. Brawn are easy on their tires and who ever short filled to try and get on pole is in deep shit considering the safety car has a large chance of coming into play early on it the race. Will watch the story unfold tommorow.
As the championship table stands, Raikonnen has a larger chance of taking third place than the Red Bulls winning the championship. Just take a look at the table:
1.) Button – 80
2.) Barrichello – 66
3.) Vettel – 54
4.) Webber – 51
5.) Raikonnen – 40
A handful of cars didn’t make the turn after the long straight which passes the 2 tunnels during both Practice 3 and Qualifying.
About the ‘Barrichello Incident’ at the end of Qualifying 3, I think that it wasn’t on purpose because he lost control of the car and the car drifted (oversteered) and hit the barrier and then hit the wall. From a comical point of view, it’s quite embarassing to crash with 30 seconds left for the qualifying session.
Barrichello wouldn’t have crashed so heavily to red flagged the session if he had lifted off after the first shunt.
I personally don’t understand why so many people are ragging on Kimi.
He has finished on podium in the last 4 races, with a car that is nowhere near as competitive as the Red Bulls, Brawns or McLarens.
Just look at his last lap in Q2 of the Singapore GP, his rear end was allover the place, literally fighting to keep it on track, yet he wasn’t “that far” off pace.
He has been phenomenally good with a car that Ferrari isn’t even developing anymore, and has been weak since the start of the season.
Congratulations Lewis, hard luck Rubens. Here is my predicted Top 8 finish.
1. Lewis Hamilton
2. Nico Rosberg
3. Sebastien Vettel
4. Mark Webber
5. Robert Kubica
6. Rubens Barrichello
7. Timo Glock
8. Heikki Kovalainen
If Rubens finishes in sixth, thats 3 of the 14 points he needs to take out.
Come on RUBENS, Finish the career on a high!!!
i agree with 16. and rubis, Lewis for the win!
Its obvious that JB will take the title.
Each person has his own favorites.
Im pretty sure jenson will take more poles this year!
Oh my God not another crashgate PLEASE!I reckon on this dusty track someone is going to spin or crash tomorrow.As for the first corner i don’t think there’ll be much problem.Hami for the win!
What happened to Fisi? He took the ferrari seat, thats what!
hello
Hope this doesn’t end like Monza………
Great now Brawn messaged Rubens to ditch.
Hello from Singapore!
cmmmonnnnnn VETTELLLL!
Ferrari are having such trouble because they have stopped developing their car…and started working on Alonso’s for next year. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if he didn’t do to Ferrari?
Is it confirmed that Alonso (^%#^%) will join Ferrari?????
C’mmon, Dad err, Lewis, you can do this!
im hoping hamilton will win today if vettel and webber get decent points and button score at all, it will make a good end to the season
oh bugger..for the brawns..lets hope someone random wins like last year..fernando alonso maybe?
Button will probably crash or get crashed into at the start. Why not crash? nothing to lose, and he’ll slip another place because of raikkonen’s KERS
and on a totally unrelated subject, the ALFA 8C COMPETIZIONE GTA IS GOING INTO PRODUCTION. it looks better than Megan Fox. in the original Transformers.
If Lewis doesn’t make a mistake during race – then 1st place is his. Nico might actually leapfrog vettel. and, come to think about it, kubica might gain a fev places, his fuel load is the biggest of all the front runners.
it’s gonna be a exciting race. lets hope hamilton doesn’t crash on the last lap… again
he cant win time for a new brittish champion
Come button just hold on to that postion in the champagne ship.
@40
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa amn!
dam..hamilton won, well at least it wasnt a brawn (they were a little off the pace)
WHAT HAPPENED FERRARI!!!??????
Button had the pace but track is not good for overtaking and is about the same strategy like monaco.
No matter what speed you have if you are not at the front. Just a train.
Barrichello finished just 2 or 3 secs behind Button – so why was he told over the radio a few laps earlier to back off and not to try and catch Button because he couldn’t catch him anyway? I wonder if they told Barrichello about Button’s brake problems right away because i’m sure that Barrichello could have passed Button if he’d known about his problem a bit earlier.
Anyway, it’s all conjecture now…Button was lucky (yet) again and can be a Sunday driver and still win the championship. Don’t get me wrong, Button has been impressive on occasion but most of the time he is just ‘good’. Can’t help but think of Damon Hill comparison.
Feel sorry for Vettel and Rosberg (espeically) – true, they made mistakes but otherwise, they were driving so well and could have possibly won the race. Well done Hamilton anyway.
Common Red Bull. You’ve given us a season to talk about already, now just finish it off in style with a real challenge on the top.
http://robert-strobel.com /2009/09/27/singapore-an d-the-title-race-for-f1-2 009/
Пожалуй так оно и есть, на самом деле все очень просто
Естественно присоединяюс к вышесказанно у!
Действительн я раньше тоже так думал… Сейчас переосмыслил