2014 Brazilian Grand Prix - Qualifying Report: Rosberg on pole, close at the top

The penultimate qualifying session of the season began in Brazil with the threat of wet weather high but a single drop never fell.

Q1: Adrian Sutil was first out in his Sauber and then went onto set the first timed lap of the session.

Fernando Alonso came over the radio sounding very annoyed after he started his first flying lap and when braking for Turn 1, he was overtaken by Grosjean in the Lotus up the inside with the Frenchman running wide. This wrecked Alonso's lap and the Spaniard had a lot of gestures in the cockpit to the Lotus driver. The reason the Ferrari driver was overtaken was due to the shortage of power in the car at that point in time.

Turn 11 was catching a few drivers out with them running wide out onto the astroturf on the outside of the corner.

The cars that were eliminated from Q1 were; Grosjean, Vergne, Perez and Maldonado.

Q2: Hulkenberg set the first timed lap of Q2 for Force India.

Sutil went wide at Turn 12 after he lost the rear of the car but the German was able to get going again.

McLaren decided to risk it and not send their drivers out again in Q2 with Button and Magnussen setting strong times.

The cars that were eliminated from Q2 were; Gutierrez, Hulkenberg, Sutil and Kvyat.

Q3: When the green light flashed at the end of the pitlane to signal the start of the final part of qualifying, no one went out straight away, with the Mercedes duo of Hamilton and Rosberg going out after two minutes of the session had pasted.

Hamilton was first across the line to set the benchmark pole time which his team-mate Rosberg beat.

On Bottas' first lap, the Finn locked up which lost him time but still went third which turned to fourth when his team-mate Massa showed the Williams' pace, with the Brazilian going third.

When everyone came in after their first runs, Raikkonen went out and posted his lap time in the Ferrari.

After Hamilton made a mistake which still gave him provisional pole and with the Williams duo not improving, Rosberg put a time in of a 1:10.023 which was three hundredths quicker than Hamilton. This gave the German his tenth pole of the season.

Rosberg's pole time broke the existing pole lap record set by Rubens Barrichello back in 2004.

Hamilton was second with home favourite, Felipe Massa, in third.

The rest of the top ten is as follows; Bottas, Button, Vettel, Magnussen, Alonso, Ricciardo and Raikkonen.

Mattie Noble
F1 Editor