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In Spa 2009 Fisi was on pole, the top 9 were separated by 4 tenths of a second around Spa. Most of the field was separated by 7 tenths in Q1 and Q2.

Was it around this time that the qualifying times were the closest we've ever seen, relatively to lap length? Why was this?

The usual front runners had done a bad job of interpreting the 2009 regs and the usual backmarker (Force India) had just come good. By this stage the slowest car may even have been the Renault.

New rules. Everyone was still getting the hang of them. McLaren and Ferrari mucked it up at the start of the season and fell back into the midfield, as did BMW and Renault fell even further back since they were already midfield in 2008. Teams like Red Bull and Brawn took massive leaps towards the front helped by the faltering big teams, Force India and Toro Rosso made leaps too.

Basically the top teams fell back, the back teams moved forwards and by Spa they were all pretty much meeting in the middle hence the close times.

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There was the rumour of 'special tyres' given to Toyota, FI and BMW that weekend if I remember correctly!!

That was a very strange weekend indeed, I remember Fisichella being 999/1 for pole on Betfair, someone backed it for a few quid! With such an unusually close grid, having a car that suited a particular circuit could rocket you up the field. FI were fast in Spa and Monza that year then went back to being lower midfield again. Fisichella would have won that race if they had KERS or Raikkonen got penalised for overtaking outside track limits on the first corner.

BMW abandoning the 2008 car when Kubica was leading the WDC in favour of developing the 2009 car (which turned out to be a complete dog) was one of the biggest **** ups in recent F1 history.

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As evidenced by Toyota locking out the front row in Bahrain and becoming backmarkers in Monaco.

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It was something to do with the tyres that Bridgestone brought to the w/e which were somewhat weird

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Spain 2012 from memory is the closest qualifying session I can remember.

Edit - it was close in Q2, 9 drivers seperated by 0.2. But most did not do a proper lap once in Q3.

Wasn't Hamilton 7 tenths faster than anybody else?

You're right, it was the battle in Q2 that was close. From P3 - P12 was covered by 0.250

But wasn't that the qualifying session he was disqualified from for not having enough fuel in the car?

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It wouldn't have been drastically different, certainly not enough to cover 0.7s. He made it most of the way around the track on his in lap before being told to park it.

Yep, still 7 tenths ahead though almost twice the time that covered the whole top 9 in spa 2009. As pointed out though it was close behind.

Which would only account for 1 tenth at the very most

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I thought when sky and the BBC analysed it the fuel required would have taken 3 to 4 tenths off Lewis's time giving him a marging of 3 tenths over the next best?

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Lewis only needed 1.5 litres to make it round again safe. F1 fuel costs approx 1 tenth per lap in lap time for every gallon so I seriously doubt Lewis was that much quicker just down to having not np enough fuel. He was just super fast that day. The true gap would still have been 6 tenths.

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Thought it was a tenth per litre?
1.5 to complete the lap and then minimum 1Lt for sampling so that's 2.5 minimum on board at the end of his hot lap

Close to 3 tenths in my book!

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But for a spinner on the last corner at the end of the session Damon Hill would've grabbed pole

He was under a tenth off and he slowed down!!

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He only just had under the 1ltr for sampling, that's why he stopped on track (McLaren thought they could claim force majure in stopping). An extra 1.5 litres would have seen him ok.

So no. Not 3 tenths, more like 1 tenth.

10 litres of fuel is worth 3 tenths per lap.

1 gallon in 4 litres - so 2.5 gallons in 10 litres - so around 2.5-3 tenths in lap time if you carry that as extra.

James Allen also calculated that 10 kgs/litres of fuel costs around 3.5 tenths per lap in Monza.

So either you miscalculated your sums Silverstone Regular or you made them up.

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I will go with made it up in relation to sky/bbc calculating he gained 3 to 4 tenths which was plain and simply not true

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No Idea what the BBC or Sky said but there is no way half a lap of fuel costs you 3-4 tenths. That would mean a car would start the race lapping about 20 seconds slower than it would at the end of the race. I would think the time Hamilton gained from the weight would barely even be 1 tenth.

Again just stop and think about how slow a car would be if it had 70 laps of fuel on board if each laps worth cost 3 tenths.

Exactly or unless the poster thinks the cars finish with 5/6 laps of fuel left in the car after qualifying

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1 lap of fuel at flat out pace = 0.125 in Spain.

Lewis needed half a lap of fuel at coasting speed. Behind the SC they use less than half normal, so coasting will be even less than that. So you are looking at about 0.050 or about 0.100 with a bit of margin.

If the weight penalty was 0.3 per lap, 70 lap race, you are looking at cars starting the race 21 seconds slower than qualifying. The real figure is 4-5 seconds slower.

On lap around Spa requires about 3.3kg of fuel and 10kg adds about 0.38s to the lap time according to Allen, that would mean one lap of fuel extra adds 0.125s to the laptime.

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