With that in mind, the nature of his pole position ahead of Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix will rank alongside Monaco 2014-where his late off-track adventure led to a yellow-flag period, preventing his rivals from improving their lap times-as one of the sweetest of his career.
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The Williams drivers were quick again, with Massa taking third and Bottas fourth ahead of Ricciardo and Sainz.
Williams’ Valtteri Bottas and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel are third and forth behind the Mercedes cars.
While Hamilton appeared relaxed over the prospect of starting second-with a points advantage the equivalent of nearly two race wins, after all, why wouldn’t he be at ease?-Rosberg seemed to take much confidence from his performance, telling Gill his auto was “positively on rails”.
Kvyat’s Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo described the crash as “silly”, but he said he could understand how it happened to Kvyat.
Hamilton and his Mercedes team, so dominant for the best part of two seasons, will be bidding to bounce back from their mysterious display in Singapore only a week ago.
Rosberg was on provisional pole at the time of the crash after the first runs in Q3, his storming opening flying lap being 0.076s faster than Hamilton.
Rosberg complained of “hesitations on the engine” as he left the pits at the start of qualifying, but he ended the first session in a comfortable second. “So I went to the wrong setting and it emptied the pack after half a lap”, he told Sky Sports F1.
Max Verstappen of Scuderia Toro Rosso suffered a total power failure at the end of first qualifying, bringing his vehicle to a halt at the side of the track. I don’t think seventh shows how happy I was with the auto, because I thought we were on for a top five, but we’re still in a good place for tomorrow.
“I mainly feel sorry for the guys, who have quite a big job”.
“The conditions today were tricky.” said Kvyat “The track was slippery the more it drizzled and Suzuka is a narrow circuit and there are a few corners where the auto had a tendency to aquaplane”.
(CNN)Nico Rosberg claimed pole at the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka Saturday after the session was cut short due to a huge crash involving Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat. He added: “Hopefully it will be a dry race tomorrow”. “I can not do much more than this”, Alonso said.
Bianchi went into a coma after the accident and died in July. I don’t know, but it should have been looking better than P10, because the vehicle felt good in the fast sections, even though we lack the speed in a straight line. What a dispiriting season this has been for the two-time champion, one of the greatest of all time.
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As the lap times crept downwards as more rubber was laid into the track it became increasingly obvious that McLaren-Honda was in trouble.
