Qualifying postponed to Sunday morning

The 2013 Formula 1 season got off to a wet and chaotic start this year as heavy rain in Melbourne marred qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix. So much rain came down prior to the start of qualifying that Charlie Whiting and the FIA enforced a full half-hour delay to the start of Q1, giving time for on-track marshals to clear standing water for driver safety.
In a slight change to the qualifying session setup for the 2013 season (due to the loss of the two HRT cars in the off-season), six cars are now eliminated from the first qualifying session, and another six cars from the second qualifying session. The remaining ten cars will make it to Q3 are then left to battle for the top ten positions on the grid for the next day’s race.

Q1 got off to difficult start for the drivers as all 22 cars competing this year quickly took to the track to get a fast lap in before any more rain fell. Not even five minutes into the session, and rookie Caterham driver Van Der Garde had taken a rough trip across the grass, ripping his front wing off. A string of spins quickly followed as Lewis Hamilton hit the wall damaging his rear wing, and Felipe Massa came into contact with the wall at turn 11 ripping his front wing off. Sergio Perez also found himself struggling for grip on track in with his new [McLaren] car as did rookie Sauber driver Esteban Gutierrez, whose crash was enough to bring his first qualifying session of the year to an early end and a yellow flag to the session.

As Q1 came to an end, and just when everyone thought the bad weather had come to an end, worse weather rolled over Albert Park bringing heavier rainfall than was seen earlier in the day. This caused an initial forty minute delay to the start of Q2. However, with sunset scheduled for 19:38 local time, the decision was ultimately made by Race Control to call an end to Qualifying for Saturday.

With Q1 already complete though, the final six positions of the grid have already been decided.

Williams driver Pastor Maldonado was the surprise ‘dropout’ name at the end of the first qualifying session, securing just seventeenth position on the grid for tomorrow’s race. Rookie driver Esteban Gutierrez qualified eighteenth for Sauber after a crash late in Q1 meant he was unable to improve on his lap time.

Little change from the 2012 season thus far sees the Marussia and Caterham team cars occupy the final four slots on the grid. Marussia rookie driver Jules Bianchi, who has little experience with his new car after signing with the team late in the pre-season tests, put on an impressive drive to place nineteenth overall. Caterham rookie Giedo van der Garde and his teammate Charles Pic, both who struggled with grip all session resulting in both losing their front wings in separate incidents, follow in twentieth and twenty first place, whilst Bianchi’s teammate at Marussia (and also a rookie driver) Max Chilton takes the twenty second (and final) position on the grid for the Australian Grand Prix.

Qualifying sessions 2 and 3 have therefore been rescheduled to take place on Sunday morning at 11:00am local time.

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Times after Q1 :