MKILU

May 7 (PVM) It was a sign of supreme confidence from the world champion Sebastian Vettel, after topping the timing screens with his first run in Q3, he climbed out of his Red Bull RB7, high fived his crew, while his main rivals chased his best lap time in vain.

The German had done enough – and he knew it – with the one supreme lap of 1 minute 25.049 seconds which was enough to give him pole, almost half a second up on his team mate Mark Webber who notably also did a single lap and declined to attack Vettel’s best with a second run.

Thus, apart from trouncing their opponents, the energy drinks duo also managed to save tyres and will start the race not only from the front row.

For Vettel and his team it was a performance of champions when it mattered. After an opening day shunt which left him with a “headache” and gave his mechanics a sleepless night as they got Kinky Kylie back up to speed and enabled the championship leader to make it four pole positions in a row so far this year.

Last time that happened was when Mika Hakkinen scored four top spot starts in the first four races of 1999 driving a McLaren designed by Adrian Newey. Yes – Newey the genius behind the Vettel’s RB7.

Vettel said afterwards, “First of all apologies to the team and mechanics. I damaged the car pretty much yesterday so we missed a session in the afternoon, but they fixed it for today, and we did a very good job.”

He added, “We were there from the beginning and I am very happy. I like the track, which helps and it was nice to see that after not many laps I was able to find the rhythm. Both Mark and myself decided to skip the second run, and it is a strange feeling because the others are on track and there is nothing you can do.”

Webber was pragmatic after settling for second without a battle, “I would like to have had a couple more tenths to have the margin. But we spoke about it and it’s going to be a long race and you need all the help you can get. I was happy with today.”

Following up from his form in China, Nico Rosberg will start third on the grid and will be gunning for at least a podium finish in the race. He got the better of his team mate Michael Schumacher who looked strong in the morning free practice but still seems ill at ease with current era qualifying. He ended eighth fastest.

Rosberg was clearly pleased with the turnaround, “It’s really great to see. I am very happy for all of us. I think we have done really well to come back from a difficult start to where we want to be. Today went very well and we even saved a set of options for tomorrow.”

Despite scoring his highest grid slot for 2011 Schuamcher was not happy, “I’m definitely not happy with that. The more I pushed the more thing went wrong and by the end there was no grip left.”

Mercedes GP team boss Ross Brawn told BBC afterwards, “It’s an interesting business, F1, because we haven’t made any dramatic changes to the car, we’ve just got it working properly. Hopefully we can bring some things to improve its performance now.”

More was expected of McLaren this weekend but last year’s winner Lewis Hamilton was only good for fourth place on the grid and although not far off Rosberg (0.021 seconds in fact) was over half a second down on Vettel. He will probably take solace in the fact that in China he got the better of the Red Bull driver when he was almost a second down on the world champion’s pole position time.

“It’s not pole position but it’s better than nothing,” said the 2008 F1 World Champion. “We’re starting on the dirty side, but we’re in the fight. We don’t have an extra set, we went out, whether that was right or not I don’t know. We’re not far away but now you see the Mercedes have picked up their pace and also the Ferraris have. I’m looking forward to a strong race. It’s a long one here but there are chances to overtake and it should be good.”

Jenson Button, who looked to set to out-qualify his team mate again but failed to do so, will start sixth on the grid. The MP4-26 was not at ease around the flowing Istanbul track and the bounce (or was that porpoising of sorts?) generated under braking into Turn 12 looked decidedly evil.

The Woking squad brought a host of upgrades for Istanbul but it is clear that these were not as effective as they were expecting.

The two McLaren’s were split by Fernando Alonso, who up until qualifying was dogged with non-stop niggles with the Ferrari 150 Italia, including hydraulics issues that seriously hampered his track time. Nevertheless the Spaniard dug deep and will start fifth on the grid for the fourth time out of four this season.

His team mate Felipe Massa, who has a hat-trick of wins in Turkey on his CV, will start from tenth without having set a time in Q3 When the pit wall personnel saw that his lap was not quick enough, the Brazilian driver was told to come back in, thus saving tyres for the race.

Vitaly Petrov was fastest of the Renault duo and will head up the fourth row, which he will share with Schumacher. The Russian continues to impress with his maturity and ability to out pace his  more experienced team mate Nick Heidfeld who was ninth fastest in the session.

Kamui Kobayashi was an early bad luck victim when after going out on his out lap and the Sauber C31 dying on him his car coasted to a halt in the pit lane entry. His qualy was over.

Lotus was again the better of the back marker teams with Heikki Kovalainen setting the 18th best time from Jarno Trulli. The Finn again trouncing the lacklustre (disinterested?) Italian.

Jerome D’Ambrosio outqualified his Virgin Racing team mate Timo Glock despite the latter having the latest updates bolted on to his MVR-02, but D’Ambrosio will start last after a five grid place drop thanks to ignoring yellow flags during FP3.

Glock meanwhile was outqualified by Vitantonio Liuzzi in the HRT for the first time this year. The German will start 21st, with the Italian 20th on the grid.

Narain Kartjikeyan was slowest of all the runners but will start 22nd ahead of Kobayashi and D’Ambrosio.

At the end of Q1 the top ten were: Massa (who was the only one to run soft tyres) followed by Vettel, Webber, Hamilton, Alonso, Button, Sutil, Maldonado, Petrov and Rosberg.

It was close but there was no joy for the beleagured Williams team as Rubens Barrichello just failed to make it into Q3. The Brazilian was safe until the last few seconds when Nick Heidfeld sent the Brazilian into the drop zone and 11^thspot on the grid. Which will be a boost for the team after a traumatic week for the team. Pastor Maldonado will start from 14^th.

Adrian Sutil out qualified his Force India rookie team mate Paul di Resta for the first time and will start from 12^th with the Scot in 13^th spot on the grid and again fastest rookie.

Sergio Perez will head up row eight in the Sauber with Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi beside him in 16^th and Jaime Alguersuari slowest of all in Q2 in 17^th.

At the top of the timing screens there were signs of things to come with Vettel fastest from Rosberg, Hamilton, Webber, Schumacher, Alonso, Massa, Button, Petrov and Heidfeld.

Source: http://www.yallaf1.com