An exciting qualifying session in India saw Romain Grosjean knocked out in the very first round.
Sebastian Vettel went on to claim his seventh pole position of the season.
Here’s how it unfolded on the team radio broadcast.
2013 Indian Grand Prix qualifying team radio transcript
| Phase | Time | From | To | Message |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | 19:22 | Juan Pablo Ramirez | Giedo van der Garde | We’ll wait a couple of minutes. Wind at the moment direction has changed to tail wind on the back straight, tail wind braking into turn four, beware of that, and then sidewind on the other areas. |
| Q1 | Giedo van der Garde | Juan Pablo Ramirez | So we’ve got wind from the back on the straight? | |
| Q1 | Juan Pablo Ramirez | Giedo van der Garde | Yeah that’s correct. | |
| Q1 | 18:41 | Francesco Nenci | Esteban Gutierrez | Shift two. |
| Q1 | 18:15 | Phil Charles | Jean-Eric Vergne | Small wind direction change, Jev, little bit of tail wind on the long straight. |
| Q1 | 17:56 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | Straight out. Gutierrez is turn 15 at the moment. Just a request, if you get out of a lap try and tell us straight away so we can look for traffic. |
| Q1 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | Track’s clear. Just short-shifting through the gears. Gutierrez just starting a lap now. And your reference turn one brake balance is 55-5. Temperatures are 10 front and 10 rear. | |
| Q1 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | Gutierrez 11 seconds behind. And in terms of fuel you’ll go mix two for all timed laps, even if you’re not pushing, that’s because we are fuelled for that. | |
| Q1 | 17:00 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | Temperatures are 10 front and 9 rear. Gutierrez eight seconds. Boost to 50 only. |
| Q1 | 16:42 | Brad Joyce | Adrian Sutil | All cars behind are on out-laps, mediums tyres. |
| Q1 | 15:35 | Peter Bonnington | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes’ Q1 cut-off time estimate was fairly accurate: Grosjean set a 1?óÔé¼Ôäó26.577 and was elimiated in 17th, Bottas was 16th with a 1?óÔé¼Ôäó26.178. Straight out, circuit should be all clear. Expected lap time, or cut-off, rather, 26.5. So remember short-shift in seventh. You have the magic diff available so that’s bacl button on the left-hand side. Ricciardo and Raikkonen cars behind, they left the pits with you so they’re on out-laps. Sutil in the final corner is about to start a timed lap. |
| Q1 | 14:55 | Peter Bonnington | Lewis Hamilton | We can afford to work the fronts harder to get the temps up, just keep the rears under control. I’ll let you know. |
| Q1 | 14:40 | Gary Gannon | Max Chilton | Fronts -23, rears -26. |
| Q1 | 14:22 | Phil Charles | Jean-Eric Vergne | Still a big gap behind you to Bianchi and Perez. They’ve just left turn four so you’ve got a seven seconds gap behind you now so don’t be too close to Van der Garde. |
| Q1 | 13:51 | Rob Smedley | Felipe Massa | KERS recharge one click up. So Di Resta very slow in the first sector so he must have popped up somewhere so I guess he’s going to start his timed lap so that’s fine, you’re going to be in sync with him. Get the gap anyway. Van der Garde is four sceonds behind, he’s on an out-lap. Vergne is three seconds behind him, he’s on an out-lap. So pull back to Van der Garde and you will get the gap to Di Resta. Press the ED button. |
| Q1 | 12:52 | Nico Hulkenberg | Marco Schupbach | Obviously we’re getting a bit out of plan now. [Distorted] next one and then see what we do. |
| Q1 | Marco Schupbach | Nico Hulkenberg | Yep that’s good. Di Resta now five seconds behind, watch for him, he’s on quick lap. And then five seconds behind is Massa, he’s exiting turn nine, he’s also on a quick lap. | |
| Q1 | 11:00 | Nico Rosberg | Tony Ross | What do you think the cut-off is? |
| Q1 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | We think -.1 from where you are is the cut-off, so a 26.5. Let us know if you want electronic changes so brake balance forward. Keep fronts up, fronts are 14, rears are 15. Lewis has backed off behind, he is the first car, seven and a half seconds, there’s two cars on laps behind him. | |
| Q1 | 10:18 | Peter Bonnington | Lewis Hamilton | Sutil now the car seven seconds behind. You now have Pic and Maldonado. |
| Q1 | 9:30 | Mark Temple | Sergio Perez | Nice lap, currently P1. Can we have yellow G1 and be careful of Vergne, five seconds behind, he may be on a timed lap. |
| Q1 | Sergio Perez | Mark Temple | The car was a bit nervous. The rear was a bit nervous in the high-speed. | |
| Q1 | Mark Temple | Sergio Perez | Understood Checo. Try to go up on the diff switches that will help. You still have Vergne three seconds behind on a timed lap. If you let him through Bianchi is behind him, also on a timed lap. We need to get ourselves a good gap for the next lap. | |
| Q1 | 8:40 | Rob Smedley | Felipe Massa | That’s OK so we’ll try again. We’ll do one more. Press the ED button. |
| Q1 | 8:08 | Paul Davison | Jules Bianchi | Just watch for Perez there, there’s a gap behind Perez. So pace, you did 27.6, Van der Garde 27.7, Pic 27.8 and Max 28.1 so pace looks good mate. Keep pushing, we need all the brake temp we can get, keep pushing on the in-lap. |
| Q1 | Jules Bianchi | Paul Davison | OK. | |
| Q1 | 7:12 | Mark Slade | Kimi Raikkonen | Box this lap please, you are currently P2. Use all the KERS on the in-lap please. Bottas behind you is on a slow lap but Romain is behind him on a timed lap. Big gap at the moment. Cool the car as much as you can please, Kimi. No problems from other cars behind. |
| Q1 | 5:50 | Andrea Stella | Fernando Alonso | Button you should see him in corner one and then behind you there is Felipe out of last corner now. |
| Q1 | Andrea Stella | Fernando Alonso | We have Felipe nine seconds behind us. Behind Felipe is Perez who is four seconds, three seconds behind him. | |
| Q1 | Andrea Stella | Fernando Alonso | OK we go to charge plus two. We go for three timed laps, we still have seven seconds on Felipe behind, charge plus two. Behind Felipe is clear if you need, there is three-and-a-half seconds behind you. Over-revs on. | |
| Q1 | 3:28 | Mark Slade | Kimi Raikkonen | Next car is Vettel, he’s just done a timed lap, he’s a long way behind you. |
| Q1 | Kimi Raikkonen | Mark Slade | [Distorted] | |
| Q1 | 2:55 | Peter Bonnington | Lewis Hamilton | Circuit’s all clear. Di Resta crossing the start/finish line now, about to start a lap. |
| Q1 | Peter Bonnington | Lewis Hamilton | Di Resta six seconds behind on a lap. | |
| Q1 | Peter Bonnington | Lewis Hamilton | Di Resta at three seconds. | |
| Q1 | 2:04 | Simon Rennie | Mark Webber | Go for a slow lap now. We can run again. We’re a little bit on the edge so we will go do one more lap Do one slow lap this time, watch tyre temperatures, try to cool the tyres. |
| Q1 | Simon Rennie | Mark Webber | Use 70 KERS. Brake balance one click forwards. Chilton and Ricciardo behind you both on out-laps, five seconds behind you, you have a clear track ahead. | |
| Q1 | 0:38 | Tim Wright | Charles Pic | Di Resta behind might be on a cool-down lap but there is space behind Di Resta. There is a gap behind Di Resta. We expect Di Resta to cool down now. We expect Maldonado to cool down. You will need to take space from Maldonado and Hulkenberg ahead because they may be slowing. Di Resta behind is slow. Mixture one. |
| Q1 | 0:00 | Romain Grosjean | Ayao Komatsu | I got traffic on the… not that lap, the quickest lap, in the last corner. |
| Q1 | Ayao Komatsu | Romain Grosjean | OK, copy that. | |
| Q1 | 0:00 | Phil Charles | Jean-Eric Vergne | Currently P12. Slow in-lap please, no KERS release. So we were a 26.1, Daniel did a very good lap, 25.6, he made two-tenths in both of the first two sectors on us. |
| Q1 | 0:00 | Romain Grosjean | Ayao Komatsu | Where are we? |
| Q1 | Ayao Komatsu | Romain Grosjean | Unusually, FOM didn’t censor this message. I fucked up massively. P17. | |
| Q1 | Romain Grosjean | Ayao Komatsu | No way. | |
| Q1 | Ayao Komatsu | Romain Grosjean | Yeah. | |
| Q1 | Daniel Ricciardo | Marco Matassa | Bit of understeer on throttle. So through, like, turn four, a little bit out of one and out of turn four limited by understeer on throttle. Then for the rest of the lap was not too bad. The car is a little bit nervous but I think we’re more or less there. So it was OK. | |
| Q1 | Marco Matassa | Daniel Ricciardo | In terms of front wing are you happy, I think? | |
| Q1 | Andrew Murdoch | Pastor Maldonado | Just a bit unlucky with the first lap with that mistakes and then the tyres were too stressed for the second timed. | |
| Q1 | Pastor Maldonado | Andrew Murdoch | Yeah I got traffic. | |
| Q1 | Phil Charles | Jean-Eric Vergne | Just looking at the data we think it might help you to rotate the car a bit more. If we went again on a new set put a bit more flap. For this set I don’t think we do, I think we leave the same. But for the final one we can add a little bit more. | |
| Q2 | 13:44 | Marco Matassa | Daniel Ricciardo | In terms of the front wing are you happy to stay with? |
| Q2 | Marco Matassa | Daniel Ricciardo | Ricciardo presumably makes some gesture to Matassa. Copy that, I agree. And for the next set I think we should stay. | |
| Q2 | 13:04 | Francesco Nenci | Esteban Gutierrez | One flying lap Esteban and is all clear. |
| Q2 | Esteban Gutierrez | Francesco Nenci | Copy. | |
| Q2 | 12:40 | Andrea Stella | Fernando Alonso | In Italian. Sono sicuro che tu senti me. (I?óÔé¼Ôäóm sure that you can hear me.) |
| Q2 | 12:10 | Brad Joyce | Adrian Sutil | We recommend diff mid four for the oversteering. Also go up on entry as well: diff entry up one and diff mid up one. Try that in the final sector. |
| Q2 | 11:50 | Francesco Nenci | Esteban Gutierrez | A Lotus is four seconds in front on used [softs] as well. Sutil behind 11 seconds. Recovery seven now, can keep a bigger gap. |
| Q2 | 11:11 | Rob Smedley | Felipe Massa | Kimi is ten seconds behind. He’ll be OK, you just try and maintain that gap. Anyway you need a slightly harder out-lap than normal as this tyres are used. In front of you you’ve got a clear track so try to maintain that. |
| Q2 | 10:27 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | Temperatures are ten front, ten rear. [Hulkenberg] just passing now. Next car behind is Lewis on an out-lap. So just get those fronts warmed up. |
| Q2 | 9:55 | Peter Bonnington | Lewis Hamilton | Massa behind, 25 seconds, so plenty of space to drop back. Tyre temps ten degrees off the window so they shuold be good for the start of the lap. Go to mix two now. |
| Q2 | 8:45 | Marco Schupbach | Nico Hulkenberg | Sutil behind, Sutil opening his lap. Now Rosberg behind, six seconds. He will open his lap, he’s on a quick one. Then Hamilton, he will also be on a quick one. |
| Q2 | Nico Hulkenberg | Marco Schupbach | Again too understeery on [mediums]. Really need from before where we were, need to come up three clicks. | |
| Q2 | Marco Schupbach | Nico Hulkenberg | Understood, up three clicks compared to [softs]. Watch Rosberg then Hamilton. | |
| Q2 | 7:40 | Andrea Stella | Fernando Alonso | Radio problems for Alonso. We have Vergne behind us, three second behind us, I keep talking, not sure if you can hear me. Box now. |
| Q2 | 5:51 | Francesco Nenci | Esteban Gutierrez | Box Esteban. Is the car OK? |
| Q2 | Esteban Gutierrez | Francesco Nenci | Yeah the car is OK but [distorted]. | |
| Q2 | Francesco Nenci | Esteban Gutierrez | Release seven, charge the KERS. Box. | |
| Q2 | 5:08 | Daniel Ricciardo | Marco Matassa | Personally I’m not convinced but if you see something I don’t, please decide, but I don’t see any merit in it. |
| Q2 | Marco Matassa | Daniel Ricciardo | No I am much the same. Toggle it. | |
| Q2 | 4:47 | Dave Robson | Jenson Button | I think it’s fair to say that is a stunning lap on a used set. But we are going to pepare the car for another run on a new set of [soft] tyres. |
| Q2 | 4:06 | Guillaume Rocquelin | Sebastian Vettel | Alonso ahead, out lap. |
| Q2 | 3:40 | Andrea Stella | Fernando Alonso | If you can here me it was the only car behind you, now is clear behind you. |
| Q2 | 2:50 | Simon Rennie | Mark Webber | Let’s go for another slow lap please, we will go again, slow lap this time, look after the tyre temperatures, clear lap behind, use 50 KERS early. Brake balance one click forwards to open the next lap. |
| Q2 | 2:15 | Guillaume Rocquelin | Sebastian Vettel | You’ve now got Alonso starting his timed lap, you’re about ten seconds up the road. And behind him is all cars on out-laps. |
| Q2 | 1:45 | Peter Bonnington | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes slightly overestimated the time needed to reach Q2: Button made it in with a 1?óÔé¼Ôäó25.458. Straight out. Cut-off 25.25. Circuit should be all clear. The reference time in your car is 25.5. |
| Q2 | 1:18 | Marco Schupbach | Nico Hulkenberg | Now Vettel in front, he’s gone slow. Recovery nine, release eight, special two. |
| Q2 | 0:56 | Rob Smedley | Felipe Massa | Kimi very slow in the first sector so Kimi not a problem. Get the gap to Perez. |
| Q2 | 0:21 | Jonathan Eddollls | Valtteri Bottas | That’s looking good so keep doing that, back off. Still five seconds gap to Raikkonen. Make a bigger gap more cars ahead. Need to back off a bit more. Lotus are in the pit lane, Raikkonen could be in. |
| Q2 | 0:00 | Marco Matassa | Daniel Ricciardo | Stay in front of Rosberg. |
| Q2 | Marco Matassa | Daniel Ricciardo | Multifunction position two and follow the reference. KERS release seven. Do not release the KERS. | |
| Q2 | 0:00 | Rob Smedley | Felipe Massa | P8 but we should be OK. Hamilton goes fifth so we go P9 so that’s OK. Wasn’t a particularly great lap I think you’ll agree but it’s fine for what we need to do. Go right switch down. OK you are negative on the split time which is fine. |
| Q2 | 0:00 | GianPiero Lambiase | Paul di Resta | Hard luck. You are P12. P10 was Button, 25.458, Sector three was over a tenth slower than the scrubbed tyre so maybe close but I think probably a bit optimistic, we were probably half a tenth on a perfect lap away from Q3 today. But I think that’s a good effort, well done. |
| Q2 | 0:00 | Marco Schupbach | Nico Hulkenberg | Still starting the lap turn one especially is quite understeery on the car, it’s not really turning, need to kill the speed, also there we’re lacking some lap. |
| Q2 | 0:00 | Jonathan Eddollls | Valtteri Bottas | Any other comments on that run, Valtteri? |
| Q2 | Valtteri Bottas | Jonathan Eddollls | No just the front temps were not high enough for the timed lap just the out lap was compromised a bit with the others. That was the main limitation. The rear was there but the front wasn’t so [distorted] good lap with the balance that we had. | |
| Q2 | Jonathan Eddollls | Valtteri Bottas | Copy that. That’s it for today, gents. | |
| Q2 | 0:00 | Phil Charles | Jean-Eric Vergne | Hard luck. Your feedback for us? |
| Q2 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Phil Charles | Still haven’t much feeling in turn five/six. Turn four was fine. To be honest I thought I was a decent lap, I’ve done everything I could really. | |
| Q3 | 10:00 | Marco Matassa | Daniel Ricciardo | Ricciardo missed the cut for Q1 by 0.061s Good effort, Daniel. |
| Q3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Marco Matassa | Understood. Disappointing but I tried my best. Were we close to Q3? | |
| Q3 | Marco Matassa | Daniel Ricciardo | One tenth from [distorted], half a tenth from Q3. | |
| Q3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Marco Matassa | Understood. | |
| Q3 | 9:38 | Simon Rennie | Mark Webber | Remember the programme: cold lap then push. |
| Q3 | 8:33 | Guillaume Rocquelin | Sebastian Vettel | I’m sending you out in front of Mark who’s going to start his first timed lap on [mediums]. He’s going to be pushing hard, obviously, but the gap is big. If you need to drop back behind him its not a disaster. |
| Q3 | 7:35 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | No more boost. |
| Q3 | 7:20 | Simon Rennie | Mark Webber | Alonso behind you is also on a timed lap, he is pushing. |
| Q3 | 6:10 | Dave Robson | Jenson Button | That’s good so Hamilton behind could be on a timed lap, he’s seven seconds behind. Keep warming the brakes. |
| Q3 | 5:34 | Mark Temple | Sergio Perez | Confirm we are box this lap for [medium] tyre. |
| Q3 | Sergio Perez | Mark Temple | OK box this lap. | |
| Q3 | 5:16 | Peter Bonnington | Lewis Hamilton | Hamilton lost time early in Q3. We were delayed getting out of the garage so this is just going to be one out and one in lap, so going past the pits once, you can do the first two sectors pushing, just get an idea of the balance. |
| Q3 | 4:45 | Simon Rennie | Mark Webber | Box this lap, keep up the pace on the in-lap, that was a very good lap. KERS seven, use all the KERS. |
| Q3 | 3:43 | Guillaume Rocquelin | Sebastian Vettel | At the moment you are the only car who had run new [softs]. |
| Q3 | 3:32 | Jenson Button | Dave Robson | What’s the front wing angle with this at the moment? |
| Q3 | Dave Robson | Jenson Button | That is 78 and a half, so that is one and a half down from the [soft]. This will be a new [medium] tyre, three timed laps and it’ll be a pull-away. | |
| Q3 | 2:35 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | Straight out. Raikkonen will just be starting a lap now so you’llsee him in turns one and three. Raikkonen at the start/finish line now. |
| Q3 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | Brake balances forwards, just start warming those tyres. | |
| Q3 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | Mix is good. Raikkonen on a timed lap in front, three seconds, Lewis on an out-lap behind, five seconds. He has Button about ten seconds behind him on a timed lap. | |
| Q3 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | No more boost. | |
| Q3 | 1:33 | Nico Hulkenberg | Marco Schupbach | Get a DDS slip while downshifting to second. |
| Q3 | Marco Schupbach | Nico Hulkenberg | OK, understood. | |
| Q3 | Nico Hulkenberg | Marco Schupbach | And as well in turn three. | |
| Q3 | Marco Schupbach | Nico Hulkenberg | Copy that. Recovery ten. Should now happen with quali recovery. So Webber behind is out lap, then is ten seconds to Alonso is also out-lap. | |
| Q3 | 0:12 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | Temperatures are 12 front and 11 rear. Brakes coming up. Gap to Raikkonen in front is seven seconds, gap to Lewis behind is seven seconds. Just warm those front tyres up. |
| Q3 | 0:00 | Simon Rennie | Mark Webber | I know you’re looking for position. Make good space to the cars ahead. Massa also on an out-lap. |
| Q3 | 0:00 | Dave Robson | Jenson Button | Keep pushing, might get one more timed. |
| Q3 | 0:00 | Dave Robson | Jenson Button | Button crossed the start/finish line moments after the chequered flag came out and wasn’t able to do another lap. Sorry, we took the flag. Yellow G7. Track is clear behind. Box this lap. |
| Q3 | 0:00 | Dave Robson | Jenson Button | Green S7, please, discharge all KERS. Purple C7 for the delta, must keep that delta neg. |
| Q3 | 0:00 | Sebastian Vettel | Guillaume Rocquelin | Yes guy, yes! We did what we had to. Great job, car was fantastic. |
| Q3 | 0:00 | Tony Ross | Nico Rosberg | That’s P2 Nico, good effort. |
| Q3 | 0:00 | Peter Bonnington | Lewis Hamilton | Hamilton later said he didn’t lose much time behind Vettel and the stewards did not impose a penalty. Can you just confirm it was a Red Bull that was in the way? I guess it was Vettel, not Webber? |
| Q3 | 0:00 | Lewis Hamilton | Peter Bonnington | Yeah, [distorted]. |
| Q3 | 0:00 | Peter Bonnington | Lewis Hamilton | Copy that. We’ll have another look at it. |
| Q3 | 0:00 | Simon Rennie | Mark Webber | The top three was Vettel, Rosberg and Hamilton on soft tyres, with Webber the highest qualifier on mediums. Everyone else on [mediums] is at the back, we are P4 mate, nice job. |
Thanks to @KevinCucamest for translating the Italian radio messages.
Phase/time: Refers to point at which message was broadcast. There may be a delay between messages being said and being broadcast. PQ = pre-qualifying.
Message: Repetitive or irrelevant messages omitted. Notes in italics. Highlights in bold.
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Image ?é?® Lotus/LAT
BasCB (@bascb)
31st October 2013, 16:00
Great Idea, very interesting to see what they are talking about during Qualli.
James (@speedking84)
31st October 2013, 22:52
Why does Ayao say he ****** up massively, did he not inform Romain of traffic in front?
bosyber (@bosyber)
1st November 2013, 7:26
They got the cutoff wrong @speedking84, GRO should have been on options to get through like most of their qualifying direct competition.