It was getting mighty crowded in the Scuderia Toro Rosso garage during today’s qualifying session. First of all, you have to remember that this is the home race for Jaime Alguersuari and the Barcelona boy had brought loads of friends along to watch him perform.
Our third driver Daniel Ricciardo was also there to see the action and he turned up with another young Spanish Red Bull driver, Carlos Sainz Junior, and if that name seems familiar, yes he is the son of the rallying legend. Finally, Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz was making his first visit of the season to a Grand Prix and he spent much of the session in our garage. He must have liked what he saw, because for a big part of the Q1 session all four of his cars were at the top of the time sheet.
By the end of Q3, he moved across to see Mark Webber record his first pole of the season, ahead of Red Bull Racing team-mate Sebastian Vettel. The Aussie will be hoping this is a good omen for tomorrow, bearing in mind he won this race last year. The second row of the grid will see Lewis Hamilton third for McLaren with Fernando Alonso alongside him. Let’s hope the Ferrari man lines up in the right place, as it’s the first time this season he won’t be heading for the fifth spot on the grid! In that place tomorrow will be the second McLaren of Jenson Button, with Vitaly Petrov on the outside of him in the Renault.
Once again, our two boys are in line astern, with Sebastien Buemi eleventh on the sixth row which he shares with Sergio Perez in the Sauber. In thirteenth place, Jaime Alguersuari will be aiming to outdrag the other Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi when the lights go out tomorrow. Our Swiss lad did a great job today, getting the most out of the STR6. Having negotiated Q1 safely enough in ninth place, in Q2 he went for the aggressive choice of only doing one flying lap, which means getting the speed advantage of carrying less fuel. Once he had secured eleventh place, it was then decided there was no advantage in using up another set of tyres in an attempt to squeeze into Q3 where the likelihood was that tenth would be the most he could achieve. This means he has an additional set of new soft tyres for the race and we have seen at other venues, especially in Turkey, how important that can be on Sunday afternoons. Jaime found life a bit tougher and, while he was happy with his STR6 in sectors 1 and 2, he was struggling in the slower sector 3. Still, a bit of luck and a boost from the Jaime fan club could see us pick up a few more points tomorrow. Whether we do or not will depend more than anything on tyre strategy, in terms of choosing the absolute right moment at which to make the pit stops. It’s going to be a very busy time in pit lane as it is difficult to see anyone racing competitive without making at least three pit stops.
Crowded House in Barcelona