Vettel leads Red Bull stampede to take pole

Sebastian Vettel in familiar pose after taking pole for the European GP in Valencia

Jun.26 (YallaF1.com) Red Bull Racing regained the upper ground with a dominant display in qualifying for the European Grand Prix in Valencia. Sebastian Vettel powered to pole position fractionally faster than team mate Mark Webber to ensure a Red Bull front row for the start of the race on Sunday.

Qualifying top three: Mark Webber (second), Sebastian Vettel (pole) and Lewis Hamilton (third)

“Mama Mia!” shouted Vettel into the radio as he claimed pole for the first time since the Chinese GP – making it eight out of nine for the energy drinks team.

Sporting the Adrian Newey devised F-duct system on the RB6 for the first time in qualifying this year there was really nothing to stop Red Bull’s stampede.

Pole sitter Vettel said afterwards, “It’s good. The last couple of races we did not have a smooth run. The race days were sometimes a bit rough. Canada and Valencia should not be our strongest but it’s good that we can put the car on pole and the pace is looking good.”

Second fastest Mark Webber makes it another all Red Bull front row

He added, “It was very tough because we reintroduced our ‘F-duct’ for this weekend and the mechanics had only an hour or two of sleep, so it’s good to say thank you and put the cars one and two.”

Webber was equally content, “I am very happy to be on the front row, all credit to the team. It is not one of our strongest circuits, let’s see how tomorrow goes. I am very optimistic that we are going to have a good race.”

Best of the Mercedes powered brigade was Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) with the third fastest time. He will be regretting a slight error on his final flying lap which could have seen if not nabbing pole at least splitting the Red Bulls. He ended up almost half a second off Vettel’s best.

Lewis Hamilton will start the European GP from third on the grid

Nevertheless Hamilton was content with third on the grid, “I am really happy to be here. This weekend we knew that the other teams were bringing updates and in practice we saw that we were quite a way behind. It is going to be an interesting race and I can’t complain about where we are starting from.”

Looking strong all weekend on home soil was Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and duly he delivered fourth place on the grid for the Maranello squad. The heavily revised Ferrari F10 looked capable of pole in front of the partisan crowd at the seaside street circuit, thus the Spaniard may not be all that content with the outcome.

Fernando Alonso will start from fourth on the grid

Felipe Massa redeemed himself, after being substantially off the pace of team mate Alonso until Q3 where the Brazilian dug deep and earned himself fifth on the grid

Renault’s Robert Kubica looked potent all weekend but when it mattered could only manage sixth fastest time. The Pole only had one crack at a time and it appeared that the best times were being set on the second flying lap on either set of tyres.

Jenson Button (McLaren) has simply been no match for his team mate Hamilton all weekend. Thus it was no surprise that the reigning F1 World Champion could only manage seventh fastest time and over a quarter second off his team mate.

Jenson Button unhappy with seventh on the grid

Button was not happy, “It was really good until the last corner but then I made a mistake,” he told the BBC. “I am disappointed to be down there because this is a circuit you can’t overtake on. Hopefully I can get a good start, otherwise it’s the pit stops.”

Nico Hulkenberg (Williams) was best rookie and best Cosworth powered driver with the eighth best time, getting the better of his veteran team mate Rubens Barrichello (Williams) who was ninth fastest. With both cars making it into Q3 Valencia appears to be something of a renaissance for the team.

Starting tenth, slowest of the Q3 runners, will be Renault’s Vitaly Petrov.

Q1: Close call for Schumacher

Jarno Trulli was best of the new team drivers

Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber) was the unfortunate driver of the established teams to miss the cut as once again none of the new teams made it past Q1 with both Lotus drivers best of the bunch headed by Jarno Trulli who was 19th quickest and Heikki Kovalainen 20th.

Next up were the Virgin Racing pair with Lucas di Grassi 21st fastest getting the better of Timo Glock, 22nd,  for the first time this season in qualifying.

Karun Chandhok, 23rd, was best of the Hispania Racing rookies with Bruno Senna slowest of all. The brown cars will share the final row on the grid for the European GP.

Michael Schumacher (Mercedes GP) had a big scare with less than a minute on the clock he was in the drop zone. The seven times F1 World Champion, racing on the circuit for the first time, was struggling with power steering problems, nevertheless managed to escape with his final flyer with 12th best time. Phew!

Several drivers had a spell top of the timing sheets but when the Q1 ended it was Kubica quickest of all from Vettel, Button, Barrichello, Alonso, Webber, Massa, Hamilton, Roberg and Hulkenberg.

Q2: Early shower for four Mercedes powered drivers

Michael Schumacher and Mercedes GP once again under-performed

Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso will start the European GP from 11th on the grid after missing the cut by a slight 0.034 seconds.

Once again Q2 claimed some of the big scalps which included Mercedes GP duo failing to make the cut. Nico Rosberg will start from 12th on the grid while Michael Schumacher will line up in 15th place.

Force India, who showed strongly a couple of hours earlier were unable to make it into Q3. Adrian Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi will share row seven on the grid with Sutil staring 13th and Liuzzi 14th.

Sauber’s Pedro de la Rosa was 16th quickest with fellow Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari (Toro Rosso) was slowest in q2 and will start from 17th on the grid.

At the the end of Q2 it was Red Bull’s who hogged the top spots with Vettel fastest from team mate Webber followed by Massa, Kubica, Hamilton, Alonso, Barrichello, Button, Hulkenberg and Petro. Just over half a second covering the top ten!

Report in progress…

Qualifying – 26 June 2010