Qatar GP: Free Practice and Qualifying Report
motorsport-live.com March 18th, 2017
Happy new year, Motorsport fans, it is Saturday, the sun is shining over the Doha Race Circuit, and the V10 engines are roaring for the first time in 2017 for the opening round of the 2017 World Motorsport Championship. The title holders come in virtually unchanged, apart from their car having an ugly shark fin on the back, and the
Rossini's are looking to steal their throne... while the French newcomers from
Espirit GP just want to survive.
"Great to see our cars out there, driving in anger and in formation with the big boys," said
Espirit technical director Callum Hamilton about how he felt during the first practice session of 2017.
One subtile change for the 2017,
Lotus Racing let young
Ellie Marsh drive the car of
Iker Vidal, and the 19-year old decided to put the pedal to the metal early and drove a stunning 1:54.778 to top the time sheets ahead of
Nina Holtz(1:55.000) and the two
Rossini drivers.
When it mattered,
Iker Vidal was back in the car for qualifying and crossed the line first with a 1:53.550, smashing
Nina Holtz 2016 Pole Position time by half a second already... but the cars came thick and fast.
Chapman 1:52.385 P1,
Holtz 1:52.641, P2.
Winston Margate, the rookie in the
Panther... fastest in sector one... in sector two... 1:52.465, P2.
Wexler... 1:52.426, P2 and the top four cars were within three tenth of a second and there was another lap to go.
Wexler, first of the top five, failed to improve, and the second
Rossini of rookie
Rafael Rodriguez was also beaten in fifth place. And then came the pole setter of 2016.
Nina Holtz pulled off a magical lap, pink in every sector, destroying
Chapman's first time by .914, 1:51.471.
And the Brit had no answer and neither had
Winston Margate, who was not able to repeat the two sector times he posted in the first try.
Holtz ahead of
Chapman for a all Silver Arrow front row, then
Wexler and
Winston Margate with
Rafael Rodriguez and the
Van Dort of
Niilo Saarinen in the third row.
Who can stop the
Steinmann on this track?
Team Radio of the Day:
"You were pink in sectors one and two mate."
"(Censored by GMA), sorry guys, I missed the braking point in the final complex. Sorry."
Winston Margate,
Panther, after he missed provisional pole by .080.
--
That is $100k for qualifying above 13th.
Iker put in a couple of great laps and made great use of his pimped car, but I'm a bit disappointed by
Jeremy and P19, I thought his car would be better. However, I did not expect the pace difference to last season to be THAT significant.
Holtz was 2.5 seconds faster than last years pole. Holy cow...
As for us, we will run
Woodford long on the hard tyre and hope for him being able to run a one stopper while
Iker will run a conservative two stopper while starting on the medium tyre. His job is to keep position at least and make a solid run for a couple of points, given his qualifying performance, he should have the pace/reliability to get that one...