Yahoo Autos As Hamilton Takes Spanish GP Pole, Verstappen Qualifies Fourth
Lewis Hamilton has for the past two years been the single fastest driver in the single fastest car in Formula 1. Lewis Hamilton has had so many issues in the first four races of 2016 that he's already nearly two full races out of the championship lead despite missing the podium just once. The balance of power hasn't exactly shifted, despite teammate Nico Rosberg comfortably winning the past seven F1 races between a three-race win streak to end 2015 that amounted to the automotive equivalent of garbage time points in a basketball game and four wins to start 2016 coming mostly off the strength of a Mercedes chassis that is again the benchmark of the series, micro situations have just piled up so much against Hamilton over what now adds up to a third of the season over the two years that they've masked the seemingly-continuing macro fact that he is the best at what he does.
Perhaps nothing better describes this dichotomy than their relative qualifying performance in 2016. In the three races Hamilton started on pole, Rosberg was second, just a few tenths back. In the two races Rosberg won the pole, however, Hamilton's qualifying session ended when he was unable to set a lap time after a mechanical failure. Hamilton still seems to be the quicker of the two, but while he's started two races from low on the grid and put himself in the mid-pack with lap 1 incidents in two others, Rosberg has comfortably pounced on his mistakes, consistently operating at 98 percent of Hamilton's level while never putting himself in the same situations that lead to trouble that his teammate is. Tomorrow marks Hamilton's first of seventeen more chances for redemption, another opportunity to start at the front of the grid and get away to a clean lead early, but if he gets involved in yet another lap 1 incident, Rosberg is again in position to take that lead and build it to a point that it becomes insurmountable by the time Hamilton makes his way back through the top ten.
One row on the grid behind the inter-team drama at Formula 1's fastest program is the ultimate result of an inter-team drama so vast it's swallowed two teams. With Red Bull well past its Sebastian era, officially out of its Dan era and moving ever-forward into its exceedingly-inexperienced-sons-of-famous-drivers-from-the-late-90s era of pulling names out of hats and putting those names in Toro Rosso entries, the team has to be pleased by the early returns on Max Verstappen. The second-year driver's raw aggression, something developed over just one full season in cars before his F1 debut last year, has left him struggling at times with the program's development team, but that same aggression has also allowed him to show his talent repeatedly against drivers significantly more experienced than himself, something he showed again today by qualifying in fourth, still behind teammate (and lone Toro Rosso success story remaining in the Red Bull family) Daniel Ricciardo but, incredibly, in position to fight for a podium tomorrow. The demoted Kvyat, meanwhile, starts in thirteenth, three spots behind his new Toro Rosso teammate.
From fifth on back, the grid follows as a close Formula 1 observer would expect from 2016. The Ferraris, led by Vettel, hold row 3 comfortably over a gaggle of entries from Williams, Force India, Toro Rosso and McLaren, while Haas F1 and Renault divide the haves from the have-nots, the Sauber and Manor pairings that have struggled throughout 2016. The lone name out of place is Felipe Massa, who starts 18th after failing to make Q2 despite teammate Valtteri Bottas nearly ten grid positions higher in seventh. With no grid penalties awarded over the race weekend, rare in this new turbo era, the majority of teams and drivers are where they expect to be, and when they race tomorrow, will be in position to fight for the things they normally fight for.
