Lewis Hamilton today broke Red Bull’s incredible 100% pole position record for this season, and will start ahead of world champion Sebastian Vettel. Jenson Button qualified 3rd, as the race for the constructors’ title becomes even harder to predict.

Q1

Rubens Barrichello was the big victim of Q1, along with the usual suspects from Lotus, Virgin and Hispania. He was knocked out by his teammate Pastor Maldonado after the chequered flag fell, and will start tomorrow’s race from back in 18th on the grid. Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in the first part of qualifying.

Behind him will be the two Lotus drivers with Heikki Kovalainen in front of Jarno Trulli. The Virgin duo of Timo Glock and Jerome d’Ambrosio line up in that order behind, with Tonio Liuzzi in front of Daniel Ricciardo at the back. Ricciardo failed to set a lap time due to technical issues but should be able to start the race.

Q2

Michael Schumacher was the shock exit in Q2, and could only manage 12th place on the grid in a Toro Rosso sandwich, with Jaime Alguersuari in front and Sebastien Buemi behind.

Schumacher and Alguersuari were the victims of a late Force India rally, with both Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta saving themselves at the death.

Kamui Kobayashi will start alongside the Swiss on row seven, with Bruno Senna 15th in front of fellow South Americans Pastor Maldonado and Sergio Perez.

Q3

Lewis Hamilton scored his 19th career pole position, as he broke Red Bull’s 100% pole record for this season, and forced them to wait a little while longer for the record of 16 poles in a single season.

Vettel could only manage 2nd behind Hamilton, and the last time he failed to start from the front – at the German Grand Prix – it was Lewis Hamilton who was stood on the top step of the podium.

Jenson Button will start from 3rd, with Mark Webber alongside him on row two. Felipe Massa out-qualified Fernando Alonso again to start in front of the Spaniard, with Nico Rosberg and Vitaly Petrov forming row four.

Force India duo Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil will start from 9th and 10th respectively.

Sebastian Vettel took pole position ahead of tomorrow’s Italian Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton 2nd and Jenson Button 3rd. Read on for a session-by-session report on how things unfolded:

Q1

Jaime Alguersuari was the disappointed man eliminated in Q1 along with the usual suspects. Meanwhile at the top of the timesheets it was Lewis Hamilton who set the fastest lap of the session.

Fortunately for Pastor Maldonado and Williams, a crash he suffered prior to setting a timed lap after getting on the DRS too early out of Parabolica wasn’t enough to render his day over, and he managed to get himself out of trouble and finish 11th in the session.

Alguersuari will start 18th tomorrow ahead of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen, with the Italian out-qualifying his Finnish teammate at his home Grand Prix. Timo Glock will start alongside his teammate Jerome d’Ambrosio on row 11, with Daniel Ricciardo out-qualifying Hispania teammate Tonio Liuzzi for the first time.

Q2

In Q2 it was Paul di Resta who suffered heartbreak for the second consecutive race, being knocked out of qualifying after the chequered flag fell. Bruno Senna of Renault did the deed, just squeezing through into the pole position shootout.

Di Resta will start alongside his Force India teammate Adrian Sutil on row six tomorrow, with Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado making an all-Williams row seven.

Sergio Perez will start 15th ahead of Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi, with Kamui Kobayashi brining up the rear in 17th.

Sebastian Vettel set the fastest lap in Q2.

Q3

No prizes for guessing that it was Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel who took pole position, as the Austrian team maintained their 100% record in qualifying this season. Lewis Hamilton of McLaren took 2nd, with Jenson Button 3rd.

Hamilton may have took pole position, were it not for a bad mistake from the 2008 world champion when he locked up on his final flying lap. Button too was on for a good last lap and maybe pole position, although he took the strange decision to abort his lap and come into the pit lane.

Fernando Alonso will start 4th with Mark Webber 5th. Felipe Massa could only manage 6th in a disappointing display from Ferrari in front of their fanatical tifosi. Vitaly Petrov qualified an impressive 7th, with Michael Schumacher 8th.

Nico Rosberg will start 9th but he qualified on the harder tyres in an interesting strategic move from Mercedes GP. Bruno Senna didn’t set a time in Q3 and so will start 10th.

Sebastian Vettel scored yet another pole position at Spa-Francorchamps ahead of tomorrow’s Belgian Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton 2nd and Mark Webber 3rd. Read on for a session-by-session report on how things unfolded:

Q1

Michael Schumacher was the major news story in Q1, with the German crashing out with under three minutes of qualifying gone. The veteran’s Mercedes appeared to have a wheel failure as it came loose at high speed, causing Schumacher to go backwards into the wall and meaning he’ll start the race from the back of the grid. It’s especially disappointing as this weekend it’s the 20th year since the seven-time world champion made his Formula 1 debut.

Joining Schumacher in being eliminated from Q1 was Paul di Resta, who was pipped to the post in dramatic fashion by Heikki Kovalainen in the Lotus, impressing in getting through to Q2. It was disappointing for Force India, who took the first and only ever pole position at this circuit courtesy of Giancarlo Fisichella in 2009.

Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock will start tomorrow’s race behind di Resta in 19th and 20th respectively. Jerome d’Ambrosio will start his first ever home Grand Prix tomorrow from 21st position, that is assuming that he’s permitted to start after missing out on the 107% time.

Both Hispanias were also outside 7% of fastest man Jenson Button’s time, with Liuzzi 22nd and Ricciardo 23rd.

Q2

Despite a quickly-drying track in Q1, rain began to fall again in Q2 meaning that as in the first session, intermediate tyres were the preferred option.

The greasy kerbs were enough to make Force India’s day go from bad to worse, as Force India were left wondering what might have been when Adrian Sutil got too much kerb at Raidillon, spinning into the wall rendering his day over and causing the session to be red flagged.

Once the session was resumed it was carnage with times tumbling once the chequered flag fell. Fernando Alonso squeezed through with a last gasp lap, with Bruno Senna and Sergio Perez also squeezing through late on. Sebastien Buemi wasn’t so lucky and will start the race tomorrow 11th ahead of Kamui Kobyashi.

McLaren’s Jenson Button will start a disappointing 13th, victim of the chaos late on in the session. He was caught out when the times were dramatically dropping off and didn’t have time to save himself. Despite shockingly being eliminated in Q2, more of the attention was focused on Button’s teammate Lewis Hamilton who did manage to get through, but having sustained a lot of damage in the process.

He was deliberately swiped by Pastor Maldonado after the session had ended following contact between the two when they were both setting hot laps. It was a ridiculous move from the rookie Venezuelan, who will be lucky if he’ll be allowed to start the Grand Prix tomorrow. If he does, it’ll be from 16th position behind teammate Rubens Barrichello and Adrian Sutil.

Lotus’ Heikki Kovalainen didn’t set a lap time in Q2, saving tyres ahead of tomorrow’s Grand Prix where he’ll start from 17th place.

Q3

The track was deemed to have dried up enough for soft, slick tyres to be used in the fight for pole position, and it was Sebastian Vettel who was the fastest man of the day, setting a 1:48.298 in a dramatic end to the session. Lewis Hamilton narrowly missed out on pole, with Mark Webber 3rd.

Felipe Massa out-qualified teammate Fernando Alonso, who could only manage 8th place for Ferrari. Nico Rosberg will start 5th ahead of Jaime Alguersuari of Toro Rosso in an extraordinary drive from the Spaniard. Bruno Senna finished 7th on his F1 return, out-qualifying teammate Vitaly Petrov who will start 10th behind Sergio Perez.

Timo Glock (20th, 21st)

“A difficult day for me. We had a few problems in the first session with a fuel leak, which cost us pretty much the whole session – I only got two runs at the end. In the second session we had to change the set-up quite a lot, which took up nearly half of the practice. I completed two productive tests but unfortunately the front wing broke over the kerb, so I had to go back to the old one and run the soft tyre towards the end of the session which cost us a lot of performance compared to our new spec. It hasn’t been the smooth day we hoped for but I’m confident that tomorrow will bring better things.”

Lucas di Grassi (21st, 20th)

“We’ve had a very productive day today. We’ve done a lot of work with the new upgrades and the car was behaving as expected throughout the sessions. I’m very happy that we are getting closer to Lotus and we are ready to go for tomorrow. I am confident we can make another step forward for qualifying.”

Nick Wirth, Technical Director, Virgin Racing

“A fascinating and encouraging day. We did a series of aero tests today that have proved conclusively that we’ve made the expected step forwards in downforce which is consistent with our digital aero process. In fact the step is so significant that it caused a number of set-up issues that we’re trying to address. Lucas had a steady and productive day, with the set-up direction evolving as he’d found on the simulators this week, which is great news. Timo had a tricky Friday, starting with a fuel leak caused by a pinched O-ring delaying his start, and a lengthy set-up change taking up some valuable track time later on. Unfortunately he had an off prior to trying the option tyres which broke his new front wing and our spare wing hadn’t quite made it to the track in time for him to use. Nevertheless we have the spare now and we’ll look to improve the set-up again overnight.”

Virgin Racing have completed their two-day shakedown today, with Timo Glock kicking things up a notch from yesterday’s exploratory laps, completing 42 laps of the 1.8km Stowe circuit during the morning.

Lucas di Grassi then took over in the afternoon recording his first 36 laps as an F1 driver, before saying:

“It feels good. It feels like home! I’m really happy and our first impressions of the car are very positive. It’s amazing what the team has achieved in such a short space of time. I think we have a strong car and a great team to get things started in Jerez. It was important for me to learn as much as possible here so I can start to put some real mileage on the car next week.”

Lucas di Grassi

Nick Wirth, Virgin Racing’s Technical Director, said:

“I am delighted that we have successfully shaken down the VR-01. To achieve 100km of running out of the box is a great achievement with only a few minor issues along the way. We have acquired some good information to feed straight back into design for the development of new parts, which we may even be testing next week. All in all this is a very pleasing conclusion to a memorable week for Virgin Racing.”

Nick Wirth

Team Principal John Booth paid due credit to his brand new race team:

“Our shakedown provided our very first opportunity to work together as a trackside operation and it couldn’t have gone any better. The way the team has come together to achieve such a successful shakedown has been commendable. I’m very proud of what we have achieved and we’re looking forward to taking our place alongside the other F1 teams in the pitlane next week.”

John Booth

Virgin Racing will join up with the other teams at the Jerez test which starts on Wednesday.

Gallery

Images (C) Virgin Racing

The shakedown will continue tomorrow before the team fly to Spain for the second pre-season test in Jerez on Wednesday.

The livery sure does look as good on track as it does in the studio shots!

Gallery

Images (C) Virgin Racing

Kobayashi stood in for an injured Timo Glock at Toyota in the last 2 races of last season to make his F1 debut. He finished 9th and 6th but won himself an instant fanbase due to his aggressive style. Kobayashi has previously won the GP2 Asia Series, Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and Formula Renault 2.0 Italia. He said:

“Ever since the start of my career I have dreamed of racing in F1. Now this dream has come true. I am very happy that my two races in 2009 have earned me a cockpit place.

“I will do my very best for Peter Sauber’s team and I am proud to be able to carry on flying the Japanese flag in F1.”

Team boss Peter Sauber said:

“I’m very much looking forward to working together with Kamui. In the final two Grand Prix of last season he was granted an unexpected chance to show his skills, and he made impressive use of it.

“Particularly in the Abu Dhabi race he demonstrated not only that he can drive fast and aggressively, but also his ability to successfully implement a strategy. I am convinced he has a great deal of potential and will be able to make the most of it in our team.”

Virgin Racing today made its driver announcement in London, where it was confirmed that Manor have teamed up with Richard Branson’s Virgin brand, and that Lucas di Grassi will drive alongside Timo Glock at the team. di Grassi said:

“I could never imagine a F1 debut as perfect as this one. Entering F1 with John Booth and his crew, the same people with whom I won the 2005 Macau F3 race – one of the greatest successes in my career – is really beyond perfection I should say. And I believe I am ready for F1.

“I have worked a lot during these years to get here and I believe it happened just in time. I always had great expectations about the day I would enter F1, and I should thanks everyone who was with me all these years, and I shall say John and his team are among those very people I consider helped me to get there much before we signed the F1 contract.

“Being here with them makes more sense to me than to be with a veteran organisation. We will debut together, and that detail makes for a special bond too. I guess all that will make me stronger and more confident as I will be among old friends. I am ready to work twenty four seven and I am sure I will be able to contribute with the team efforts in every stage of our evolution in 2010.”

It was also revealed that Lucas di Grassi’s fellow GP2 graduates Alvaro Parente and Luis Razia will take on the role of test drivers with the team.

Virgin Racing driver Timo Glock is certain seven-times F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher will make a return to the sport.

The former Toyota driver, now partnered alongside Lucas Di Grassi at Virgin said:

“There’s still a lot of speculation, but in the end he is a crazy race driver, and he wants to come back to racing. It’s not enough for him to just do go-kart races, or go to the Race of Champions at the end of the year.

“The flame is still there, it’s still burning within him, and it will be great for Formula One if he comes back.
“For me, my personal feeling, it is quite obvious he is coming back.

“For Formula One and the fans it would be a big boost, a seven-time world champion coming back after three years out. It would be a mega highlight, and to drive for Mercedes, you would have a German driver in a German car.”

And Glock said he would relish the chance to race alongside his countryman, but realises it would be difficult.

“To beat Michael would be a good year for us, but we have to concentrate on ourselves, and not look at what others are doing.”

Virgin Racing have revealed Portuguese drive Alvaro Parente will be their reserve driver, and they have also made their new website live today.

To visit the the Virgin Racing website, click HERE