F1: Alonso takes pole in Germany

Spaniard in front for the 2nd consecutive race.

HOCKENHEIM:

Championship leader Fernando Alonso secured his second consecutive pole position when he outpaced his rivals in qualifying for today’s German Grand Prix.

The two-time world champion drove his Ferrari with supreme judgement to prove he is the man to catch and beat in this year’s title race as he goes in pursuit of his third drivers’ title. The Spaniard clocked an unbeatable one minute and 40.621 seconds during brief dry conditions at the end of the final Q3 shoot-out to trim his own fastest time and leave him out in front.

“You know, sometimes it’s good to check the circuit conditions, as we did in Q3,” said Alonso. “Going into Turn 6 was not easy for anybody, a lot of aquaplaning, but everything went well for us. We made a good strategy call to do a pit stop in Q3 so we could have fresher tyres in the last minute. I think that helped us a lot to improve the lap time. It has been a strange weekend for conditions on the track, but the car was performing well in both conditions so we will see what happens in the race.”

German local hero and seven-time champion Michael Schumacher, 43, was fourth fastest in front of a big crowd of his dedicated fans, with another German, Nico Huelkenberg, taking fifth place on the grid for the Force India team.

Meanwhile, Vettel, who will start second, said, “In these conditions, it was tricky. You can lose the car a bit in the rivers, but I think we had the car today to put on pole. We need to look at the strategy Alonso touched on. Maybe that was better, but in these conditions it is a bit of a lottery.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 22^nd, 2012.