Amongst all sorts of speculation about who’s faster and who’s a dog by one and all, the 2012 season finally got off to a start at Albert Park in Melbourne for the 2012 Australian GP. In the three practice sessions earlier, there had been signs of McLaren and Mercedes GP being at the head of the pack while Ferrari looked mediocre. Red Bull were close to the front but not at the front and most of us thought they were most likely sand-bagging.
Q1
By the first part of Qualifying (Q1), it was becoming evident that calling bets would not be easy this time. There were all sorts of surprises being thrown left and right. Kimi’s ouster in Q3 being the most attention grabbing of all. A poorly timed final stint left him out of action after the end of Q1 and the best he could manage was P18 (will move to 17th now after Sergio’s gearbox change 5-place grid penalty). Massa made it through to Q2 by the skin of his teeth and it was not what the scarlet fans had in mind for the weekend.
Infinite Palette 