Vettel flies to pole in Oz
Red Bull locks the front row of the grid
Sebastian Vettel took pole position for the Australian GP ahead of team mate Mark Webber.
Red Bull Racing thus locks the front row of the grid. Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button will line up on the second row.
Let’s have a look at how the session panned out:
Q1
Both Force Indias of Liuzzi and Sutil were the first to leave the pits, quickly followed by the rest of the field bar the McLaren Mercedes of Button and Hamilton.
Sutil set the early pace but was demoted by Fernando Alonso with 15 minutes to go. The Ferrari held onto the top spot for some minutes but was relegated to 2nd by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel. The German lapped in 1’24’’774 to conclude Q1 on top ahead of Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg and both McLarens of Button and Hamilton.
Alonso was fifth fastest with local favorite Webber sixth.
Unsurprisingly, all six drivers from the new teams were eliminated at the end of Q1 with Renault’s Vitaly Petrov joining them as he failed to improve on his last run (has a major moment exiting Turn 12).
Q2
Held under the constant threat of rain, the second part of qualifying saw Mark Webber having a good scrap with Fernando Alonso for first place… only for Sebastian Vettel to pip them both on his final run.
The German set a 1’24’’096 fastest time to beat his team mate Webber by 0.180s. Alonso was third fastest with Button fourth and Rosberg fifth.
Lewis Hamilton found himself in big trouble after having abandoned his first flying lap and struggled to match the pace of the front runners. So much that he could only set the 11th fastest time, thus missing the chance to make it through to Q3.
Buemi, Liuzzi, De la Rosa, Hulkenberg, Kobayashi and Alguersuari also went out.
Q3
The final part of qualifying saw a display of strength from the Red Bull Racing Team with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber fighting it out for pole position.
Extremely fast, the German driver had the edge on his Australian team mate with an impressive 1’23’’919 lap time – the fastest of the weekend.
He was the last to dip under the 1’24 barrier and vowed to “show them” at the end of the session.
Pos. | Driver | Team | Q1 time | Q2 time | Q3 time |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
01 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Renault | 1.24.774 | 1.24.096 | 1.23.919 |
02 | Mark Webber | Red Bull Renault | 1.25.286 | 1.24.276 | 1.24.035 |
03 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1.25.082 | 1.24.335 | 1.24.111 |
04 | Jenson Button | McLaren Mercedes | 1.24.897 | 1.24.531 | 1.24.675 |
05 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1.25.548 | 1.25.010 | 1.24.837 |
06 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes GP | 1.24.788 | 1.24.788 | 1.24.884 |
07 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes GP | 1.25.351 | 1.24.871 | 1.24.927 |
08 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams Cosworth | 1.25.702 | 1.25.085 | 1.25.217 |
09 | Robert Kubica | Renault | 1.25.588 | 1.25.122 | 1.25.372 |
10 | Adrian Sutil | Force India Mercedes | 1.25.504 | 1.25.046 | 1.26.036 |
— | ---------------- | --------------- | ---------- | ---------- | ---------- |
11 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren Mercedes | 1.25.046 | 1.25.184 | |
12 | Sébastien Buemi | Toro Rosso Ferrari | 1.26.061 | 1.25.638 | |
13 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India Mercedes | 1.26.170 | 1.25.743 | |
14 | Pedro de la Rosa | Sauber Ferrari | 1.26.089 | 1.25.747 | |
15 | Nico Hulkenberg | Williams Cosworth | 1.25.866 | 1.25.748 | |
16 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber Ferrari | 1.26.251 | 1.25.777 | |
17 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso Ferrari | 1.26.095 | 1.26.089 | |
— | ---------------- | --------------- | ---------- | ---------- | ---------- |
18 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1.26.471 | ||
19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus Cosworth | 1.28.797 | ||
20 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus Cosworth | 1.29.111 | ||
21 | Timo Glock | Virgin Racing Cosworth | 1.29.592 | ||
22 | Lucas di Grassi | Virgin Racing Cosworth | 1.30.185 | ||
23 | Bruno Senna | HRT F1 Cosworth | 1.30.526 | ||
24 | Karun Chandhok | HRT F1 Cosworth | 1.30.613 |