Qualifying analysis - will Mercedes carry their form into the race?

Tyre conservation is still the name of the game in Spain, and on Saturday many drivers were mindful of the need to save rubber for the race. Thus while Mercedes’ polesitter Nico Rosberg and the Ferrari and Lotus drivers made two Q3 runs, Lewis Hamilton, the Red Bull drivers, Sergio Perez and Paul di Resta made do with only one. We take a team-by-team look at the Barcelona qualifying action and what it means for the Grand Prix on Sunday…

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg, 1m 20.718s, P1
Lewis Hamilton, 1m 20.972s, P2
Rosberg had everything together very nicely to take his second consecutive pole, while Hamilton admitted that he was a bit lost on set-up all weekend and that he’d left his W04 the same as it was in FP3. He said that Nico was just quicker, and that was all there was to it, but he did his time in only one run whereas Rosberg did two. Both admitted to being cautious about their prospects after what happened in Bahrain, but Mercedes believe that changes in set-up since then have helped their tyre wear. We’ll see.

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, 1m 21.054s, P3
Mark Webber, 1m 21.570s, P8, will start P7
Vettel said he was happy enough with his lap and clearly expects to be in a good position in the race if (perhaps he’s thinking when) the Mercedes start to eat their tyres. Webber said he just lost grip in Q3, especially in the final sector, and couldn’t understand why. He qualified eighth but rises a place as Felipe Massa was given a three-place grid drop for impeding him during Q2.

Lotus
Kimi Raikkonen, 1m 21.177s, P4
Romain Grosjean, 1m 21.308s, P7, will start P6
Lotus are perhaps the dark horses for Sunday’s race, especially when Raikkonen was extremely quick in Q1 on the hard tyre. The Finn said he got everything out of the E21, while Grosjean admitted that a big slide cost him time and places in Q3. The black and gold car uses its rubber extremely well, so there’s a lot of confidence in the Lotus camp.

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 1m 21.218s, P5
Felipe Massa, 1m 21.219s, P6, will start P9
Once again Alonso and Massa were extremely closely matched. The Spaniard said fifth was pretty much what he expected, and that much will depend on how good a start he gets. Massa was unhappy with his time after being fastest in FP3, and blamed understeer. He was unhappier still with his grid penalty, because he figured Webber had been on worn tyres and that he hadn’t affected his lap much.

McLaren
Sergio Perez, 1m 22.069s, P9, will start P8
Jenson Button, 1m 22.355s, P14
McLaren’s day began to unravel early. Their aggressive new front wings arrived, by plane and van, by the early morning, but there wasn’t time for the FIA to scrutineer them so after all that racer’s effort they couldn’t use them. With 14th and 15th places in Q1 they were a bit close to the edge, but Perez pulled a blinder to make it through to Q3 and then qualified a respectable ninth (becoming eighth after Massa’s penalty). Button, by contrast, struggled badly for grip in Q2 and failed to make it. The team suspect that the tyre pressures were set too high.