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2012 Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix Qualifying commences at 5:00pm (ADST) – join us for a live blog and updates of F1’s first qualifying session for the year to see who will be on pole – and who might miss the cut.
The practice sessions are over and the season beings proper. Pole position is what they all want, and we’ve seen all weekend that it could be any driver from four teams: Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes, and possibly even Lotus.
There’s one team missing from that equation: Ferrari. The Italian super-team are in dire trouble.
The whispers have been around all through-out winter testing, but the F1 paddock are convinced it’s worse. Their car is a real handful, with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa both forced to battle it around the track.
Alonso admitted the team will need to “grit their teeth” for the first races of the season, but it may be worse than that for the Maranello-based team if the car needs serious overhauling to bring it up to 2012 standards.
World Champion Sebastian Vettel looked quick on the medium compound tyres during the earlier practice session, but he made a mistake at turn six and lost the back-end of his car, flying off and beaching his car in the gravel.
He missed crucial running on soft tyres and may also be at a disadvantage during qualifying.
Mercedes looked quick, with both drivers having small moments off the track early on, before Michael Schumacher lost his car in a similar fashion to Vettel and ended up stuck in gravel.
Qualifying runs as per last year, with three distinct knock-out sessions. Q1 lasts for twenty minutes, with the seven slowest cars knocked-out. The remaining 17 cars then compete in a 15 minute session, again with the seven slowest knocked-out.
This leaves a final ten car shootout to decide the top 10 grid places and pole position. Both Q1 and Q2 will be fascinating to see who can make it through without problems – inevitably, we see a major player miss the cut and have to race from the back.
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