It was a drenched affair at Silverstone during qualification for the 2012 Formula 1 Santander British Grand Prix. With the rain playing havoc throughout the entire session causing qualifying to be red flagged in Q2 with 6 minutes and 19 seconds left on the clock, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso finally put together a scorcher of a lap in the final session to earn the Pole position for the race. He will be joined by Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber on the front row. The final session was all about trying to get in at least one clean lap in the midst of all the traffic.
It was a session filled with spin outs, beachings and loads of hydroplaning. With the yellow flag coming out a few times it definitely caused many a flying lap to get cut short for safety reasons. Seven time former world champion Michael Schumacher (the Rainmeister) also managed to put in a quick lap to finish in third spot. And despite a seemingly lackluster lap, reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel managed to bring in the second Red Bull Racing car in fourth place. Ferrari's Felipe Massa, sort of on a second wind, was fifth, followed by the Iceman, Kimi Raikkonen in a Lotus that didn’t have KERS. Williams' Pastor Maldonado improved his Q2 time that was enough to snatch seventh from his Valencia sparring partner McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, who was a disappointed eighth for McLaren. Nico Hulkenberg took ninth for Force India, while Lotus driver Romain Grosjean was tenth after his Q2 time (he did not run in Q3).
Here are the complete results from qualifying.
Notably missing from the top 10 was McLaren's Jenson Button who failed to make it out of Q1 due to traffic and the yellow flag just prior to his flying lap. He completed qualification in 18th place. The starting grid will be a little juggled though, as Kobayashi and Vergne have five and 10-place grid penalties respectively from Valencia, and Hulkenberg and Pic have five-places penalties for gearbox changes.
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