17.50 BST – Good evening my darling single reader and welcome to Patty’s live and not very world exclusive commentary of the Brazilian GP qualifying session.
The boss just covered a very peculiar session marred by terrible weather that looks set to continue into qualifying according to all the journos twittering about in cyberspace. The highlights were Nico outperformed his equipment and Rommmmmmmmmmain Groooooooosjean wrote another chassis off in an argument with a fence. A standard F1 session, then.
It’s 10 minutes until qualifying and it’s raining the proverbials as the BBC chats to anyone they can grab a hold of who isn’t drenched head to toe. You’ve got to figure this bad weather is going to play into the hands of people like Adrian Sutil and Seb Vettel and perhaps away from the Brawns. Despite having his KERS advantage negated somewhat by this torrential weather, I’m still going to pluck for rainmeister (a term based off one performance where everyone else was utterly poo) Lewis Hamilton to take pole.
Got a different opinion? E-mail in the comments and banter to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I may or may not bother to discuss it here.
17.58 BST – Bruno Senna bleats out that he’s basically going to be driving for one of the new efforts next season, let’s just hope he’s got eyes in the back of his head. The Merc safety cars are currently touring the track and it is ridiculously wet, no chance of inters, definitely the full wets for Q1 at least.
Qualifying Session 1
18.00 BST - And we’re off. Almost. Legard spots an owl as Brundle sarcastically observes that “you don’t see many wise things around F1 do you?” Perfect timing by Brundle as Legard tramples all over his sentence.
18.05 BST - Loads of cars have gone on track but it is crazy, crazy wet. Grosjean’s just spun off and so now has Fisichella, who is almost collected by Vettel.
AND RED FLAG BABY! Thank god for that, that gives me time to chip in some other comments. Too much aquaplaning according to Ted Kravitz.
18.07 BST - EMAIL! Andy Johnston emails in to simply say “Nico LOLsburg.” A very amusing video for you to watch whilst the epic fail continues on track. Thank you Andy.
We don’t know whether the track’s been red flagged because of Fizzi’s plonker moment or because of the rivers all over the circuit. Hamilton was on track moaning on the radio to his impossibly dull sounding engineer about how difficult the conditions were.
The Head - "As The Foot isn't here, I'll fulfil the usual duty of pointing out that the closeness of the times yesterday wasn't really that surprising given the length of the Interlagos lap. Factor in that big straight that makes up the whole final sector and it's basically half the size of a normal racetrack."
18.12 BST - EMAIL! AGAIN! Aren’t I a popular little so and so today? G’day to Yase Hage who emails in to say “I have to stay at a place today where there is no tv soI am counting on you to provide me nice commentary. (sic)” Thanks for that Yase, I’ll do my best to make it as nice as possible. No pressure at all, then.
Don’t worry you’re not missing anything on track. And we’ve now seen a caption to say “Q1 will not continue until conditions improve.” And the 2009 most subjective steward decision of the year award goes to ...
18.17 BST – Fisichella’s completed his second walk of shame of the weekend to give another account of why he’s tossed another F60 into the scenery. He’s not happy and basically says the water situation is ridiculous. Didn’t see anyone else cause a red flag, mate.
To nobody’s surprise, little Algers is on the radio saying if they send the cars out again there’ll be lots of yellow and red flags. Wonder why he wants the grid to freeze as is in his current 3rd position?
The Head - "Just set the grid now! Nico on the second row!"
The estate Merc safety car is out doing more laps and needlessly polluting the ozone. Great stuff. Oh we’ve been told it’s going to restart in a minute, hang on to your hats!
18.20 BST – Brundle’s rolling out the clichés of days like this separate the good from the great. Step forward Kamui Kobayashi, this is your time.
So everyone’s on track now and the conditions have improved somewhat, though it’s still crazy wet. Hamilton was first out on track and he’s taking the karting line in search of extra grip and it seems to be working – he’s 4 seconds up on everyone else.
18.23 BST – I’m not even going to try and update you on the order of the session as it’s going to chop and change so much as the conditions improve. It’s so wet that they can’t even go full throttle up the final sector that in the dry is a series of seemless flat out kinks.
There’s 10 minutes left and Nico is 17 on the 1-10 scale of badass as he goes P1 by a second.
18.27 BST – Liuzzi’s potty mouthed engineer told his cheeky little driver and the rest of the world that “there’s no point dicking about, we’ve put enough fuel in to the end.” I imagine that’s what everyone else is doing as all 20 cars keep pounding around the track, struggling for grip. No sign of Grosjean in the wall ... yet.
Williams are relishing these conditions, their horsepower deficit is less of an issue in these conditions and Nico is taking advantage of their excellent chassis to keep lowering the bar. Even Nakas is second! 6:30 left.
18.32 BST – So ignore my earlier comments about Brawn will struggle and SebVet will do well – Brawn’s 5th/6th and the beardy Vettel is struggling massively here, he can’t even break into the top 10, apparently because he’s set the car up to be dry for tomorrow. Not looking good for him at the minute.
Hamilton’s off in the same place Grosjean went off earlier and his car is covered in Katie Price levels of filth. Ahhhh, it’s finally happened – Grosjean’s gone off, but he is 8th. 1:30 left. Next update will have the final results.
18.36 BST – Paramedics down at Brawn as Ross Brawn’s just laughed his arse off. Only joking, but he will be laughing inside – Vettel is OUT of qualifying as he ends up 16th. He’s joined on the sidelines by Kovalainen, Hamilton, Heidfeld and Fisichella. Not a good day at all for McLaren and things just got a lot easier for Jenson Button.
Vettel is livid as he throws £30k of steering wheel onto his nosecone. Top 10:
Nico, Kimi, Kubica, Nakas, Boobens, Button, Kobayashi, Groooooooosjean, SUT, Bwemmy.
Q2 coming up.
Qualifying Session 2
18.42 – Session delayed until God stops opening the entire contents of the sea on the track.
Feel free to email in on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with your ways you’d like to maim Eddie Jordan.
The Head - "Eddie Jordan seems to be turning David Coulthard's hair grey right in front of our eyes."
Hamilton’s chatting to BBC and putting all of the blame on his car for why he’s out. With just Heikki out I’d question whether it’s the car’s fault, but with Lewis also out, it probably is Whitmarsh’s fault.
18.50 – Eddie Jordan shows his first display of being useful all year as he literally runs after Patrick Head and yanks him back to the BBC cameras for an interview about Aston Villa vs. Chelsea. And then a bit about cars too.
Patrick’s doing his usual trick of shouting every line with the authority of a WW2 general. He’s looking smug and who wouldn’t with both your cars right at the front?
Still no hint whatsoever about when Q2 is going to kick off ...
18.57 – We’re about to kick off again, wooo. Heikki is running round the paddock all smiles despite being out of Q3, how odd. Williams are immediately at the end of the grid.
Here we go again ... 15 mins to go.
19.00 – The track is full of standing water and I’m not quite sure why they’re on track, someone’s going to have a major accident here as Rosberg is having trouble even going in a straight line. All 15 cars are on track though.
BBC’s confusion has spread to Patty towers.
The Head - "Nice to see Jake Humphrey's brother doing a great job of presenting this weekend. Wait a minute...."
19.03 – Well I might be crap at predicting the grid but I’m a dab hand at predicting accidents as Liuzzi has a monumental off down the S/F straight and ends up in a T1 wall with no rear wheels. I’ve got agree with Head, no rear wheels but two front wheels intact is impressive.
Lenny Kravitz’s brother at BBC tells us it’s brightening up. This may well end up being the longest Terry ever. Nobody set a lap in that 2 minutes of fun and games, but a fair few drivers set sector times, so I’ve got no idea how they’re going to form the grid here. Take the Q1 result? Take the sector times of Q2? Draw straws?
Telegram from the Nico fanclub: The Head – “gowithQ1resultsgowithQ1resultsgowithQ1resultsgowithQ1resultsgowithQ1resultsgowithQ1results.”
19.11 – EMAIL! – G’day Jonathan Hyde who writes in to say:
“Williams are looking quick. How do you think Nico and co. will conspire to screw it up this time?”
I’m not sure Jonathan, I’m sure what’ll happen is they’ll restart the session just as a lightning bolt strikes the circuit and Nico’ll scurry back to his German TV present pal, cry and refuse to go on track. Let’s hope not though, if for no other reason than I don’t want Head to cry me a river – there’s enough on track already.
It’s sarcasm o’clock as Webber tells Charlie Whiting via one of the Red Bull staff to put some glasses on and look at all the rivers on track. Track looks clearer now though, so he may get overruled and sent on track shortly. Still a red flag with 12:24 left on the stopped clock.
19.17 – We’re still not any clearer as to what on earth is going to happen. Eddie Jordan is pushing the angle of let’s just stop and take the Q1 result as the grid, which’ll please Williams no end with Nico and Nakas 1st and 4th respectively.
The Head - "A couple more red flags and this MBM might just end up being longer than my tragic Le Mans weekend."
19.23 – I’m almost falling asleep here, all round smug prat Brawn CEO Nick Fry is talking to the BBC about how great he is. And he’s left, thank goodness.
There’s still no news whatsoever on what is going to happen. Why won’t you return my calls Mosley?!?!?!
19.30 – Autosport’s intrepid robot Jonny Noble says there’s another track inspection in a couple of minutes.
John Button’s on TV now talking crap. Eddie’s constantly trying to reminisce about bloody Snetterton Formula Ford. Back to being useless then.
19.35 – Track inspection’s been bumped back to 19.45 BST. I’m off for a brandy with Kimi at the back of the pits.
19.45 – BBC’s now gone for a walk to chat to anyone and everyone and my goodness, Mallya is even more boring than his employee Liuzzi.
The Head - "Given the dreadful comedy on display so far this afternoon, surely the producer should move the broadcast to BBC3?"
DC looks funny on brolly duties. Track inspection in 2 minutes so we’ll hopefully soon have an answer on what on earth is going to happen with this grid.
19.55 – STILL no word on what on earth is happening. I think Bernie is screening his calls, but we’ll keep harassing his private line ...
19.57 – We all know what Max likes but it appears Charlie Whiting of the FIA has an inspection fetish. He’s just called another one for 20.00BST. Ridiculous.
John Howett’s joined the BBC to explain how in your own kitchen to make a DIY comb over and a crap F1 engine.
20.02 – This track inspection seems to comprise a loon in a C63 AMG Merc having a free trackday to himself.
Apparently it’s a lot less wet than before though so fingers crossed, we may be about to kick this shizzle back off. The head of BMW chats to BBC via his tash, while my boss chips in with his own comments:
The Head - "I've lost track of what time it is. Has the race started yet?"
? Didn’t you know Seb Vettel is champion after a last lap pass in Abu Dhabi?
20.06 – Well me hanging around and kicking my heels wasn’t a waste of time – the cars will be on track again in a few minutes with just over 12 minutes left of Q2. Great stuff, unless you’re a Nico fan.
20.11 – Bernie has just given one of his token terrifying interviews to BBC where he says 3 words a minute. Head puts it best by saying Bernie was looking at Ted like he’d just scraped him off his shoe.
My WORD there are cars on track! I need to sit down and cross my legs ... 12 mins left.
20.14 – Bugger, bugger and bugger I’ve been so engrossed in BBC’s quickly thrown together interviews that I forgot to record X-Factor.
Nico’s on track, not on the verge of tears like in Andy’s earlier video. Okay Nico’s coming over the line to set a 1:21.8. That’s faster than he went in Q1 to give you an idea of the conditions – bad but not as bad as earlier. Everyone’s on full wets but I expect inters for Q3. 8:40 left.
20.17 – Nico is determined to show how good he is as he decides to be the first to go onto the inters. Brave stuff from the German, let’s hope he doesn’t do a Grosjean and wall it. Top 10 with 5 mins to go:
Kimi, Nico, Boobs, Webber, Trulli, SUT, Nakas, Bwemmy, Kubica, Algers. And Webbo goes P1 as I say that.
20.20 – Button’s not going to make it into Q3 at the moment, he needs to come and throw on inters and then just see how it goes. Up the hill he comes up, pushing on a charge, and he’s .... driven past. So he’s going to give it a go on his extreme wets.
Nakas goes 2nd. Amazing.
20.25 – Q2 FINALLY BLOODY OVER. Thank goodness for that.
The inters came to the drivers come the end of the session as I predicted, but the big news is Jenson Button is NOT going to qualify into Q3. He’s down in 14th, lolterrible, SebVet’s going to be right near him. So the top 10 that made it into Q3:
Nicoooo, Nakas, Trulli, Bwemmy, SUT, Webbo, Kubica, Kimi, Alonso, Boobens squeezing into the final Q3 place. Kobayashi, Algers, Grosjean, Button, Liuzzi out.
I need another brandy. Q3 coming up shortly.
Qualifying Session 3
20.32 – Here we go for the final session of the most drawn out qualifying session in the history of ever evers. Everyone’s on inters and I imagine they’ll just keep pounding round until the clock hits 00:00.
9 Minutes left.
20.35 – My timing system is lit up like a Christmas tree and it’s going to make it very difficult to give you accurate terry of what’s happening.
The Head - "Just enough time for Williams to shove a crap amount of fuel into Nico's car, and 9th can be his!"
I think this is going to come down to whoever is on track last will take pole, the level of standing water is reducing very quickly.
Legard has a sex wee and starts bleating on about how much of a charge Boobens is on as he goes P1. BBCtastic. 4:30 left, next update will have the final results.
20.46 – Bonkers end of Q3, cars getting faster and faster as the track dried the fuel loads came down. I also counted CHARGE by Legard 173 times during that Q3 alone. In any event:
RUBENS BARRICHELLO IS ON POLE FOR TOMORROW!
And as Jock Clear gets on the radio to rub it in – Jenson Button is 14th and Seb Vet is 16th. Really, really, really good result for Rubens for tomorrow. Rest of the grid?
Boobens, Webbo, SUT, Trulli, Kimi, Bwemmy, Nico, Kubica, Nakas, Alonso.
Williams will be disappointed after such a good Q1 and Q2, but Sutil will enjoy playing his piano tonight with a superb 3rd. Christian Horner and his dodgy accent can take some heart in Webbo being 2nd who may or may not be instructed to take Boobens out tomorrow.
My fingers are knackered, that was the longest qualifying session EVER. I’m going to try and make sense of the last three hours and write up a report, then pass out. Join us again tomorrow as The Head I believe will guide us through the race. If it’s half as mad a race as today’s qualifying was, it’ll be worth tuning in for. Thanks for the emails and wild weather, I’ve been The Hand, au revoir.
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