Extremely tight Q1, Robert was 0.001 sec ahead of Vettel

Is Kubica riding with hidden KERS? He was doing 27.4 in S1 all the time and suddenly 27.1

Yes, it was strange ... Maybe he has found his 3 tenths.

Robert fastest in S2

And what a move with this staying in pits . It was close.

Now he has 2(?) fresh set of options.

I noticed that too, it must be due some setup changes in the pits.
But overall after Q2, quite optimistic I would say, we are ahead of Williams, FI and Merc (in opposite to some defeatist here said ), and fighting with RB for P5

Robert "Poker Face" Kubica

Don't pray the day before sunset.


P5 may be possible

Only run on options would explain Robert's Q2 lap time, I'm afraid

Yeah, once again what a shame.

Q3 isn't the strongest side of RF1, clearly
Once again I was overoptimistic after Q2 :/

Seriously! WTF?

Should I laugh now ? ... Err, NO.

Jinx

What a shame, Robert lost 2 positions by 0.012 sec. This hole weekend it's gonna be damage limitation really.

Don't know what happened but P9 is poor one.

Kubica s1 and s2 record was during his inlap after first stint. His s3 sector record was during first lap of the second stint.

Q2 1.22.880 Q3 1.23.039.....

It doesn't however explain the 2 tenths he lost in Q3. Matching Q2 would be good enough for 7th.

Robert only really needs to beat Rosberg tomorrow. Beating Massa this weekend was never really going to possible.

It's unfortunate that Robert lost out on 7th place by 12 thousands of a second, but these things happen. With a full tank of fuel, I wouldn't be surprised if many people can't slow down the cars well for the chicane tomorrow!

Actually it explains it, because 1.23 was Robert's first run in Q3. I'm supprised WTF happend on his second atempt?!

I'm actually going to stretch it and suggest he was blocked or hindered by someone. We've seen a lot of it today, and it would explain a lot.

What is really strange is that he aborted very good 2nd lap in his first stint in Q3. It was highly possible to be on P7 with that run.

About our Q2-Q3 comparison - I'm afraid it's nothing new, somehow R30 is always slower or at least not improving enough than others in last part of qualyfing.

We saw what happened with Massa, at the time it probably seemed like the right idea. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I guess.

I was thinking exactly the same. Only explanation that comes to my mind is very low fuel level though it would be strange if we consider that it was his first attempt in Q3. Waiting for quotes.

He aborted this lap to have a time to run two laps at the end of Q3. Nobody was blocking him.

What a schame!

Petrov gets 5-place grid penalty:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/86597

Great
I only hope that tomorrow will be another story and Robert will gain some ground in the race. We have interesting first three rows with guys from behind of the table being in front of Hami and Webbo, should be exciting race.

QUALIFYING

Robert Kubica, R30-02, P9, 1:23.039
We knew that the best we could hope for today in a normal qualifying session was P7 on the grid, but the battle was very tight with Mercedes and Williams. I managed to set a good time in Q2 and get through with just one run, so I saved a set of option tyres for the final session. On my first run, I was two tenths up on my best when I took the decision to pit, so that I would have time to do two timed laps on my final run and hopefully improve even more. But unfortunately, I wasn’t able to repeat my time - and I ended up two hundredths away from seventh. It’s not ideal, because the cars around us are very competitive on top speeds, but we know that it will be a long afternoon for everybody, so I hope we can make the most of any opportunities that come our way.

Vitaly Petrov, R30-04, P15 (will start P20 after qualifying penalty), 1:23.819
It was a tough qualifying session this afternoon with very small gaps between the cars around the top ten. Our car is not as competitive as at the last race, and I have been learning how to find the right rhythm, and get the most from the tyres, with this low level of downforce. As for the incident with Timo, I can only apologise to him if I held him up. I didn’t see him coming up behind me and didn’t see any blue flags as I came out of the pits. My grid penalty will make things even harder in the race but, as we saw in Spa, tomorrow is another day and a lot can still happen.

Eric Boullier, Team Principal
Following on from a strong weekend in Spa, it’s clearly a bit of a disappointment to find ourselves ninth and 20th on the grid in Monza. We knew this circuit wouldn’t suit us as well as the last one, but we also clearly had the potential to do better in Q3 with Robert. Unfortunately, there is a big gap between our two cars, and both are behind each Mercedes, so it’s clearly not the most promising of positions to start from. But we are still looking forward to a good race, with strong, aggressive first laps and the right strategy, to at least finish in front of Mercedes.

Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer
It was another solid qualifying performance from Robert to once again make it into Q3 – something he has achieved at every race this season. If he had managed to repeat his time from Q2, he would have started seventh, but we know how tricky and inconsistent the cars can be to drive here. I am confident he can still have a strong race. As for Vitaly, he lost running time both yesterday and this morning with brake problems, which also recurred in a different form during qualifying. This has made it even more difficult for him to get to grips with the car in low downforce trim. He obviously has a difficult afternoon ahead of him tomorrow, compounded by his five-place grid penalty, and we will try and get him as close to the points as possible.

What a crap penalty for Petrov. He was already approaching first chicane carefully when Glock arrived, he had just nowhere to go.

But it was fair to me, he simply didn't look in mirrors and didn't pay attention to blue flags.

There were no flags

Well, I haven't recorded quali to show you the opposite but I'm very much certain of it.

There were green flags.

I believe so as well. Where was he supposed to go? If anything, it's race controls fault for not stopping him
with a red light at the pit lane.

Definite team mistake. My bet is that they were looking to drop Petrov onto the circuit ahead of Glock in such a way that Petrov could clear the first chicane before moving over for Glock ... and they failed miserably.

The race starts soon, so lets talk about our chances.

In my opinion, Robert will need Australia-style start to jump ahead of Rosberg (and Hulkenberg), to have any chances of scoring some big(ger) points today. If he manages to do so, he will have clean air in front of him an will be able to capitalise on other's errors, brain fades and technical problems (and all of these are quite likely to occur in the race ). Alternatively, if he fails to jump the two mentioned, he will be in for a really hard race, unable to overtake (poor straight line speed) most people (especially Rosberg) and quite vulnerable for the guys behind if they are able to stay close to him in the corners. Anyway, the race should be great.

Your thoughts ??

I don't try to predict Monza. There's usually someone who screws up at Lesmo 2, so there could easily be a safety car at some point.

I'm hoping for good start and good first lap

Bobby had some good starts here, let's hope this will be the case this year too...

Great start

Thanks for mechanics.

Yet another great pitstop. Shame on you.

Terrible strategy

I'm done with F1 for today, cya

I D I O T S. To throw away sure 5th place, you have to be an idiot. Unbelievable

What a glorious f*ck-up.

Robert drove really well today and got an awesome start - it's a shame the pitstop got screwed up. Coupled with Hulkenberg's awesome bit of driving to hold Robert up and let Webber through, all in all an unfortunate race for Robert

Hey, at least Singapore is next. Should be strong there.

Am I mistaken or mechanics got lost while changing front left right tyre ?? It looked like they were moving in slow mo. Awful.
And strategy itself wasn't any better. This whole absurd reminds me BMW Sauber days ... Madness.

Good start, poor pitstop, dull race in general.
Nothing to cheer, nothing to be worried.
Roll on.

I have to say I was shouting "hurry up!" at the television when I saw that. I knew it was over once Robert left the pits. I'm frustrated that Webber got ahead via Hulkenberg's awesome holding up skills, though.

And one more thing. Looking at the race and at the weekend as a whole, we have no chance of jumping Mercedes in championship. We can't rely on Petrov. The car may be faster than Mercedes but not everywhere. And last, but not the least, how many times this seasos they screwed up races in pitstops ?? It's riduculous. These mechanics are useless.

Vettel's pit stop 3.3 sec
Kubica's 5.6 sec

Not good. Not good at all. That's where all of those positions were lost.