Petrov narrowly misses top ten as penalties reorder the grid | 2011 Indian GP qualifying analysis: Vitaly Petrov, Renault, Buddh International Circuit, 2011
Qualifying times in full
- Vitaly Petrov missed out on a place in Q3 by the narrowest of margins. He matched Jaime Alguersuari’s Q2 time to within a thousandth of a second. Alguersuari progressed in Q3 because he had set the time time three minutes earlier. Had Petrov been able to replicate his Q1 time he’d have made it through.
- It mattered little in the end as he was one of five drivers to get penalties after qualifying. The others were Lewis Hamilton, Sergio Perez and both HRT drivers.
- Timo Glock will be allowed to start the race despite failing to beat the 10% time due to his gearbox problem. See the updated grid here.
- Hamilton said he decided to save his tyres when he realised he wasn’t going to be able to beat Sebastian Vettel to pole position: “I was only a tenth down going into the penultimate corner, but I chose to abort the lap and save the tyres for tomorrow as it’s going to be a long race.”
- Kamui Kobayashi said Sauber struggled with tyre warm-up as they had in Korea: “The pace of the car was certainly good enough for Q2, I was convinced about it and I also think our race performance should be alright. However, in qualifying it took me a lot of time to warm up the tyres, and then in the end I was unlucky. I had just started my final flying lap when Felipe [Massa] came out of the pit lane in front of me.”
| Driver | Car | Q1 | Q2 (vs Q1) | Q3 (vs Q2) | |
| 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | 1’26.218 | 1’24.657 (-1.561) | 1’24.178 (-0.479) |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren | 1’26.563 | 1’25.019 (-1.544) | 1’24.474 (-0.545) |
| 3 | Mark Webber | Red Bull | 1’26.473 | 1’25.282 (-1.191) | 1’24.508 (-0.774) |
| 4 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’26.774 | 1’25.158 (-1.616) | 1’24.519 (-0.639) |
| 5 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 1’26.225 | 1’25.299 (-0.926) | 1’24.950 (-0.349) |
| 6 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1’27.012 | 1’25.522 (-1.490) | 1’25.122 (-0.400) |
| 7 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’26.364 | 1’25.555 (-0.809) | 1’25.451 (-0.104) |
| 8 | Adrian Sutil | Force India | 1’26.271 | 1’26.140 (-0.131) | |
| 9 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso | 1’26.608 | 1’26.161 (-0.447) | |
| 10 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso | 1’26.557 | 1’26.319 (-0.238) | |
| 11 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1’26.189 | 1’26.319 (+0.130) | |
| 12 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1’26.790 | 1’26.337 (-0.453) | |
| 13 | Paul di Resta | Force India | 1’26.864 | 1’26.503 (-0.361) | |
| 14 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams | 1’26.829 | 1’26.537 (-0.292) | |
| 15 | Bruno Senna | Renault | 1’26.766 | 1’26.651 (-0.115) | |
| 16 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams | 1’27.479 | 1’27.247 (-0.232) | |
| 17 | Sergio Perez | Sauber | 1’27.249 | 1’27.562 (+0.313) | |
| 18 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber | 1’27.876 | ||
| 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus | 1’28.565 | ||
| 20 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus | 1’28.752 | ||
| 21 | Daniel Ricciardo | HRT | 1’30.216 | ||
| 22 | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT | 1’30.238 | ||
| 23 | Jerome D’Ambrosio | Virgin | 1’30.866 | ||
| 24 | Timo Glock | Virgin | 1’34.046 |
Team mate comparisons
Compare the best times of each team’s drivers in the last part of qualifying in which they both set a time.- Daniel Ricciardo and Narain Karthikeyan shared a team fir the first time this year. Ricciardo prevailed by a slim margin over the home driver: “I was up on my team mate but made a small mistake,” said Karthikeyan.
- Unlike Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber wasn’t able to get a second lap in: “It was tricky to work out the right strategy for qualifying. The tyres weren’t easy for one timed lap, so we had to work out how to do the right strategy – lots of teams tried different styles to get the best lap time out of the car. The first sector was tricky to get right on one timed lap. I could have done better in the first sector on my first lap in Q3; I couldn’t complete my second, as there were yellow flags after Massa’s incident.”
| Team | Driver | Lap time | Gap | Lap time | Driver | Round |
| Red Bull | Sebastian Vettel | 1’24.178 | -0.330 | 1’24.508 | Mark Webber | Q3 |
| McLaren | Lewis Hamilton | 1’24.474 | -0.476 | 1’24.950 | Jenson Button | Q3 |
| Ferrari | Fernando Alonso | 1’24.519 | -0.603 | 1’25.122 | Felipe Massa | Q3 |
| Mercedes | Michael Schumacher | 1’26.337 | +0.782 | 1’25.555 | Nico Rosberg | Q2 |
| Renault | Bruno Senna | 1’26.651 | +0.332 | 1’26.319 | Vitaly Petrov | Q2 |
| Williams | Rubens Barrichello | 1’27.247 | +0.710 | 1’26.537 | Pastor Maldonado | Q2 |
| Force India | Adrian Sutil | 1’26.140 | -0.363 | 1’26.503 | Paul di Resta | Q2 |
| Sauber | Kamui Kobayashi | 1’27.876 | +0.627 | 1’27.249 | Sergio Perez | Q1 |
| Toro Rosso | Sebastien Buemi | 1’26.161 | -0.158 | 1’26.319 | Jaime Alguersuari | Q2 |
| Lotus | Heikki Kovalainen | 1’28.565 | -0.187 | 1’28.752 | Jarno Trulli | Q1 |
| HRT | Narain Karthikeyan | 1’30.238 | +0.022 | 1’30.216 | Daniel Ricciardo | Q1 |
| Virgin | Timo Glock | 1’34.046 | +3.180 | 1’30.866 | Jerome D’Ambrosio | Q1 |
Sector times
Here are the drivers’ best times in each sector.- Jenson Button came under scrutiny as he was the first driver to pass through the scene of Massa’s crash as the yellow flags came out. The sector times show nine other cars were quicker than him through sector two, which Button was almost at the end of when Massa crashed. There has been no indication he, or any other drivers who passed through the yellow flag zone, might get a penalty.
- Red Bull are strong in sectors two and three but not in the first where straight-line speed is all-important.
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Speed trap
Here are the drivers’ maximum speeds.- Since their recent exhaust-blown diffuser upgrade, the Toro Rosso cars have featured more often among the quickest cars through the speed traps.
- Red Bull’s straight-line speed is particularly weak here – even slower than the likes of Virgin and HRT.
- Petrov narrowly misses top ten as penalties reorder the grid
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Image © Renault/LAT
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