Formula 1 Race Fifteen: Qualifying

One five-place grid penalty going into qualifying for Nico Hulkenberg of Williams, for changing a gearbox. But he's been doing well during the weekend so far despite the conditions, and it should not hurt him too much. The conditions are bad, with a damp track refusing to dry out thanks to the humid conditions.

Qualifying Round 1: It did not go well for Filipe Massa. His car stopped on track before he could set a time, so he ends up at the back of the track. Red flags went up to stop the session just before half-way. This would be a good time for Ferrari to use a ninth engine on his car, since the penalty will not affect their result.
So it looked like the usual six would be joined by Massa at the back of the grid. Replacing Yamamoto for the weekend, Klien – who hasn't done a qualifying session for four years – still beat his Hispania teammate Senna to come 22nd.

Qualifying Round 2: A problem for Petrov had him spinning and hitting the wall, causing him to break his right-rear suspension. The slipperiness of the track had many drivers spinning or sliding their cars. Poor old Alonso also had a bad session, setting a time but having trouble with his telemetry. But after a short stay in the pits he was out again. And it was Vettel who broke Kimi Raikonnen's 2008 lap record of 1:45:599 by 38 thousandths of a second.
In the end, Schumacher scraped through to Q3 – unusual for him this season – and Jaime Alguersuari got eleventh. Hulkenberg went twelfth, which drops him down to seventeenth.

Qualifying Round 3: Almost everyone went out straight away, and Alonso set an even faster time than Vettel had in the previous round to take provisional pole. With the long length of the laps, they had to fuel as fast as possible, but be careful not to leave too little time to set a lap. And in a crazy final run, Alonso beat Vettel as the Red Bull didn't quite manage to get enough time to beat him. Button got ahead of Webber, and just behind Hamilton. For the record, the fastest lap time at Singapore is now 1:45:390.

Formula 1 Race Fifteen: Preview

This weekend, there's a change of two drivers: Christian Kline for Sakon Yamamoto (Hispania) and Nick Heidfeld for Pedro De La Rosa (Sauber). Heidfeld has previously raced in F1 – you may recognise the name – and is a permanent replacement. Kline, however, is only a temporary replacement as it appears Yamamoto has food poisoning. Once again, Chandhok is not racing, although it was Sir Jackie Stewart up in the BBC commentary box for practice 1.
Singapore presents a good opportunity for the new teams. With the interesting conditions – and the chance of a safety car – if one team gets twelfth position they can reach 10th in the championship, which is worth a lot of money. And if they get points... even better!

The first practise session started out wet, although it wasn't raining, and the drivers were on intermediates. But towards the end, when the track finally got dry enough – there was no sun to dry the track since Singapore's a night race – the slicks had the drivers going faster. Still, it is going to be a long race, completely unlike Monza (Italy) which is one of the fastest Grand Prix out there. The commentators are predicting a long race - maybe even 2 hours rather than 61 laps if we get a couple of safety cars.
After P1, Webber was the fastest, but second was Schumacher, then Sutil, Vettel and Alguersuari. Only the two Red Bulls are drivers we'd expect to be going quick – Schumacher has never raced here before, and the Force Indias have varied performance. As for Alguersuari, at times this year he's been in danger of going out in the first round of qualifying (and even has, at some races). So it was interesting to look forward to practice two, and see if the traditionally faster cars (Ferrari and MacLaren) can get ahead of these surprises. Otherwise, we're bound to see some unusual results this weekend.

Practice 2 had even faster times as the track was even drier. Karun Chandhok was up with the BBC boys. It was, for the most part, a normal session, although Vettel got well ahead of the practice 2 time he had set last year at Singapore, on the 'slower', harder tyre.
Adrian Sutil got some air time as he took the chicane badly, launching his car in the air and hitting it down rather badly so that his front left wheel was snapped off, causing him to stop just before half-way through P2. As for poor old Fernando Alonso, he turned off the track to a run-off area because he was not quite going to make a corner, tried to reverse his car out onto the track to get back into the session, and then stalled. He had to get out of his car on the track, then began pushing it back by himself before the marshals arrived to take over – bad form marshals! This is especially bad because he had had the fastest time for sector 1, and a personal best for sector 2 on the track.
Despite all of that, however, he did set the fourth-fastest time. The five fastest in practice 2 were the five championship leaders.

Tomorrow: Qualifying!

Mark Lawrenson Predictions: Episode 5

Chelsea are awesome :(
Predictions here

There were no Monday matches this week, but I'm still late - sorry!
Correct predictions are in bold.

Home Team	Away Team	Predicted winner	Predicted score	Actual winner	Actual score
Stoke	West Ham	West Ham	2-0	Draw	1-1
Aston Villa	Bolton	Aston Villa	2-0	Draw	1-1
Blackburn	Fulham	Fulham	2-1	Draw	1-1
Everton	Newcastle	Everton	3-1	Newcastle	0-1
Tottenham	Wolverhampton	Tottenham	2-0	Tottenham	3-1
West Brom	Birmingam	Draw	1-1	West Brom	3-1
Sunderland	Arsenal	Draw	1-1	Draw	1-1
Man Utd	Liverpool	Draw	0-0	Man Utd	3-2
Wigan	Man City	Man City	0-2	Man City	0-2
Chelsea	Blackpool	Chelsea	3-0	Chelsea	4-0

Mark's winner prediction success rate: 4/10
Mark's score prediction success rate: 2/10

Chelsea continue their winning stream. Mark Lawrenson is doing badly. Next weekend - F1 from Singapore and Premier League.