As if qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix didn’t serve up enough drama, the stewards decided to make life even more interesting by handing out penalties like Smarties on Saturday evening.
As a result there is still some confusion over the final starting grid – but there is no doubt who will be the man to beat in Sunday’s race: Sebastian Vettel.
The German and his Red Bull are in their element through Suzuka’s sweeping curves, but surprise front-row man Jarno Trulli impressed our columnist James Allen at least as much.
That was one crazy qualifying session! And you should see the arguments going on here as to what the grid should be.
With four drivers dropping down five places for ignoring warning flags, Sebastien Buemi also dropping five places for impeding and a dangerous car and Heikki Kovalainen back five for a gearbox change, it will take some sorting out.
It looks like Rubens Barrichello may end up sixth after all that, because I’m told you have to work through the incidents in the order in which they happened.
Anyway it was a crashfest of a session, with three red flags to stop the session.
Both the Toro Rosso drivers and Kovalainen had an unnatural obsession with the wall at Degner Curve and then Timo Glock had a horrible accident in the Toyota.
For the Toro Rossos, as for Mark Webber, who crashed this morning and starts from the pit lane in a new car tomorrow, this was a terrible missed opportunity.
The car is blindingly fast around here: Vettel is 0.6s faster than the McLaren in sector one and even if Lewis Hamilton passes him off the start line from his third place grid slot, Vettel has the speed to get past him over the course of the race.
Webber should have been on the front row and both of the Toro Rossos had the pace to challenge the Brawns here, giving Vettel a real chance to get back into the points race.
Looking at the performances today, Vettel was clearly very fast all along, setting the quickest time in all three parts of qualifying.
But Jarno Trulli’s lap in Q3 was very special too. He was six-hundredths of a second slower with only three kilos less fuel (worth a tenth of a second).
No doubt the Toyota upgrade kit has improved the car, but it’s no Red Bull and that was clearly an awesome lap by Jarno.
It will not have been lost on the Toyota management assembled here in Suzuka that there are fewer drivers faster than Trulli over one lap.
Hamilton was also hustling his car. He was giving away a lot to the Red Bull in sector one, yet managed to end up just two-tenths slower overall with only slightly less fuel.
Jenson Button had another troubled session. Leaving aside the penalty for his infringement in Q2, he had a poor lap in Q3, three-tenths slower than Barrichello with two kilos less fuel on board.