Button takes maiden pole for McLaren

01/09/2012

Maybe it's the work carried out during the summer break. Maybe it the continuation of the 'lottery' witnessed at some of this season's previous races. Maybe it's the lack of running on Friday. Whatever, the fact is that this morning's session posed more questions than it answered.

While there is no doubting that Ferrari clearly as pace here and the F2012 is much improved, is McLaren struggling as much as it appears? Does Lotus have the edge over Red Bull? Has Mercedes taken a step backwards and lost out to Sauber and force India?

At one point the Marussias of Glock and Pic were topping the timesheets and while it was just a blip as things sorted themselves out it would appear that a raft of updates has had an affect.

Thankfully, the weather doesn't look likely to hamper proceedings this afternoon, though the after effect of yesterday's washout will no doubt play a part both this afternoon and tomorrow. In that sense, we could well see some big scalps in Q1, the Mercedes duo springing to mind.

Some believe that the second half of the season will witness a major charge from Lotus and in particular Kimi Raikkonen, while we don't doubt the ability of the Iceman or the Enstone team, we simply don't see them as troubling the likes of Ferrari, Red Bull or even McLaren in the long run. On the other hand, the Kimster is due a good result and where better than a circuit he loves and on which he has won four times.

Based on the evidence thus far, and there's not a lot of it, Ferrari and Lotus both look good here while Webber's gearbox change - and resultant penalty - rules him out from starting on pole and Vettel just doesn't seem at one with his car here. Some say McLaren was sandbagging however we just don't see it.

So, with it almost impossible to predict who will take pole, the fun is also going to be seeing which big scalps fail at the first hurdle and whether one of the minnows can pull off a surprise and make it to Q2.

Rosberg's chances are not helped when Mercedes reveals that the German has had to change his gearbox following this morning's problems, thereby incurring a five-place grid penalty.

Ahead of the start of Q1, the air temperature is 16 degrees C, while the track temperature is 28 degrees. It is bright, with a fair amount of cloud, but dry.

The lights go green and Pic leads the way, followed by Rosberg, Grosjean, di Resta, Hulkenberg, Maldonado, Senna and Glock.

Pic gets the session underway with a 53.493, however, no sooner has teammate Glock posted 53.205 than Rosberg posts 51.125 and di Resta 50.033.

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