Vettel rides high to take pole position as Alonso struggles in Austin
17 November, 2012
Lewis Hamilton ran Sebastian Vettel close in Austin qualifying, but not close enough
Nov.17 (Apex) On the occasion of his 100th grand prix weekend, Sebastian Vettel powered to his sixth pole position of the season in qualifying for the United States Grand Prix, at Circuit of the Americas while Fernando Alonso, his only rival for this year’s Formula One World Championship crown struggled and will start from eighth on the grid.
Vettel in his Red Bull RB8 has looked mighty since the lights went green on Friday morning in Austin, topping all three free practice sessions and all three qualifying segments, setting the scene for what could be another dominant display and a step closer to his third drivers’ title in three years.
The last time F1 was in the USA, back in 2007, the German made his debut at Indianapolis with the BMW-Sauber team. Since then – 100 races down the road – his career has hit stellar levels, and he has notched up 26 wins, two world titles and today his 36th pole position.
Vettel summed up his afternoon, ”We’re very pleased. We started on the right foot in first practice. It was extremely slippery to start with. The circuit is brand new and it takes a while to come in, but it was quite a lot of fun to slide a couple of corners. In the final section I would have loved to have gone a bit quicker. It was a bit closer than I wanted, but fantastic to start on the front and on the clean side.”
Lewis Hamilton has stalked Vettel all weekend, never quite matching him but in qualifying got as close as he has been and was only 0.109 seconds shy off the top time in his penultimate race with McLaren. He and his team will nevertheless be buoyed by the fact that they have slashed the deficit of 1.5 seconds in the opening session on Friday to a tenth of a second, in qualifying.
Hamilton reflected, “I’m not really concerned about the first corner, I’m more concerned about being on the dirty side of grid. I did a launch there earlier and it was quite slippery. My aim is to get a good getaway. I don’t want to get in the way of Sebastian’s race but I do want to win. I will try my best to get through the first turn cleanly.”
On the other side of the McLaren pit garage, Jenson Button was not having a good afternoon as he failed to make it beyond Q2 after his car ‘died’ on him in what appears to have been a throttle pedal problem on the MP4-27. He will start 12th.
Half a second off his teammate’s pole winning time was Mark Webber, the energy drinks duo will start in tandem on the clean side of the circuit.
“I’m happy with qualifying. I was pretty happy with last part of Q3 I had to manage a little problem with the car but the two guys ahead of me were pretty quick and did very strong lap times. Overall, I’m happy to be third on the grid. We can have a strong grand prix from there. It’s a great job by the team. We’ve got our eye on the constructors’ championship and trying to put that to bed,” said Webber.
Red Bull are on the verge of notching up their third F1 Constructors’ Championship in succession, thus becoming only the fourth team to perform the feat after Ferrari, McLaren and Williams.
Next up on the timing screens were the Lotus pair, who appeared to find some pace after having a somewhat subdued lead in to qualifying. Although Romain Grosjean was fourth fastest, he will drop five grid places for an unscheduled gearbox change and will start from ninth.
Thus Abu Dhabi GP winner Kimi Raikkonen will start fourth instead, after setting the fifth best time in qualifying.
Michael Schumacher surprised everyone with a sensational performance to notch up the sixth best time in the Mercedes, against all odds, while his team mate Nico Rosberg struggled and will start 17th. Schumacher pulled the lap out of the blue and will start fifth.
Behind the seven time world champion was his former protege Felipe Massa who out qualified his Ferrari teammate Alonso for only the second time this season. Alonso was ninth fastest and will start eighth, the last of the drivers to benefit from Grosjean’s demotion.
Splitting the Maranello boys, eighth fastest, was Nico Hulkenberg in the Force India, again out shining his teammate Paul di Resta who will start 13th.
Next up were the Williams pair of Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna, in 10th and 11th respectively.
Down the grid, both Marussia drivers Timo Glock (19th) and Charles Pic (20th) outqualified the Caterham duo for the first time this year.
At the sharp end, Vettel will be the ninth triple champion since 1950 if he scores 15 points more than Alonso. The Red Bull dirver last achieved that margin in Japan in October and has done it on three occasions this season so far.
The title clinching scenarios are:
- If Vettel wins, Alonso must finish fourth or higher to stay in contention.
- If Vettel is second, Alonso needs to be at least eighth.
- If Vettel is third, Alonso must be 10th or higher.
- Should Alonso fail to score, Vettel must still finish at least third.
- Anything less then the title decider moves to the season finale in Brazil next weekend.
Final word to pole winner Vettel: ”There’s not much to feel [about Alonso qualifying ninth]. We have to look after ourselves. I’m very happy, we had a smooth session. We had an issue yestersday and we lost time, things have happened and they might happen again. We are very happy with the result but so far nobody has scored any points; we’ve seen how things quickly can change from the last race.”
Subbed by AJN.
United States Grand Prix, Circuit of the Americas – Saturday, 17 November 2012
| Pos | No | Driver | Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Laps |
| 1 | 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 1:36.558 | 1:35.796 | 1:35.657 | 20 |
| 2 | 4 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1:37.058 | 1:36.795 | 1:35.766 | 20 |
| 3 | 2 | Mark Webber | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 1:37.215 | 1:36.298 | 1:36.174 | 20 |
| 4 | 10 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Renault | 1:37.486 | 1:36.906 | 1:36.587 | 28 |
| 5 | 9 | Kimi Räikkönen | Lotus-Renault | 1:38.051 | 1:37.404 | 1:36.708 | 26 |
| 6 | 7 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1:37.927 | 1:37.102 | 1:36.794 | 22 |
| 7 | 6 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1:37.667 | 1:36.549 | 1:36.937 | 24 |
| 8 | 12 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India-Mercedes | 1:37.756 | 1:37.066 | 1:37.141 | 20 |
| 9 | 5 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1:37.968 | 1:37.123 | 1:37.300 | 24 |
| 10 | 18 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams-Renault | 1:37.537 | 1:37.011 | 1:37.842 | 26 |
| 11 | 19 | Bruno Senna | Williams-Renault | 1:37.520 | 1:37.604 | 20 | |
| 12 | 3 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1:37.565 | 1:37.616 | 12 | |
| 13 | 11 | Paul di Resta | Force India-Mercedes | 1:38.104 | 1:37.665 | 15 | |
| 14 | 17 | Jean-Eric Vergne | STR-Ferrari | 1:38.434 | 1:37.879 | 17 | |
| 15 | 15 | Sergio Perez | Sauber-Ferrari | 1:38.500 | 1:38.206 | 16 | |
| 16 | 14 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 1:38.418 | 1:38.437 | 15 | |
| 17 | 8 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:38.862 | 1:38.501 | 16 | |
| 18 | 16 | Daniel Ricciardo | STR-Ferrari | 1:39.114 | 9 | ||
| 19 | 24 | Timo Glock | Marussia-Cosworth | 1:40.056 | 12 | ||
| 20 | 25 | Charles Pic | Marussia-Cosworth | 1:40.664 | 11 | ||
| 21 | 21 | Vitaly Petrov | Caterham-Renault | 1:40.809 | |||
| 22 | 20 | Heikki Kovalainen | Caterham-Renault | 1:41.166 | |||
| 23 | 22 | Pedro de la Rosa | HRT-Cosworth | 1:42.011 | |||
| 24 | 23 | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT-Cosworth | 1:42.740 | |||
| Q1 107% Time | 1:43.317 |
Note: Grosjean drops five grid places for an unscheduled gearbox change
Related posts:
- Mighty lap from Hamilton secures pole position for Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
- Vettel dominates Indian Grand Prix as Alonso keeps title battle alive
- Vettel takes pole for the Indian GP as Red Bull dominates again
- Alonso masters the rain again to take German GP pole at Hockenheim
- Vettel delivers mega lap to claim pole position for Canadian GP
bitterfly is funny in mixing me with jl
@Speedo:
Yeah, well, upgrades haven’t worked for some time now. No wind-tunnel equals no upgrades that work, but the designer really has no clue what to do… I mean, look at the way the Ferrari has looked for the last four years. Now compare that to the championship-winning cars.
There have been a lot of changes in that team – good changes – since Fernando came along. He raised the bar and that prompted change, but the design office is the weakest link right now.
I understand Tombazis had to work both as a designer and aerodynamicist (manage the wind-tunnel), which you just don’t do. Now they brought in the guy that did the aero work on the Brawn car to manage the wind-tunnel. I guess that’s why they shut it down.
I read somewhere that he fixed Merc’s problem with their own wind-tunnel when going from 50% to 60%, so he’s the guy to have at Maranello.
Ferrari are rebuilding themselves, yes, but I just wished Fernando had won more in these last three years.
Ferrari will pounce. Maybe not next year since it takes time to get the wind-tunnel working and get a good design out the door, but they will be back and will steamroll RBR.
Either way, 2nd in both championships is a step forward compared to the last three years.
@fools:
jl and alonso_is_slow are one and the same. It’s that pesky troll…
this article doesn’t even pertain jut about Alonso. Yet 2 idiots seem to comment about him and him only. smh…
Alonso for the 2012 WDC!
sour grapes, alonso failed then alonso blame the car.
Can’t see past some carnage at the first corner. Just hope Seb keeps his nose clean and finishes the job this weekend. At least Lewis seems to understand the importance of keeping out of the championship battle.
@Butterfly as I understand Ferrari fitted the so called upgrades to Alonso’s car only and it went backwards while Massa’s car minus the upgrades progressed. What a set of jokers. On this new slippery track I expect many to go off track and also expect accidents with the likes of Perez, Grosjean and Maldonado resulting in safety car. The safety car came to Vettel’s aid at Abu Dhabi and the same may happen and favour Alonso in Austin.
Wow either Fernando’s car is setup exclusively for race or is Alonso feeling the pressure and frustrated..but anything can still happen until its over.I am always optimistic and Fernando can still win the WDC,till vettel wins it..IF anyone can,its Alonso
FORZA FERNANDO,FORZA FERRARI
Yeah Butterfly – good one! You know, I just want a straight fight between Alonso and Vettel is all. I’m pissed off because Alonso is HELPLESS in this situation. Plus the frustration of losing the ’10 title to Vettel is still fresh in his mind as it is in mine and it was incompetent Ferrari team management that lost that race with that stupid pit stop call amid all the pressure. To reduce Alonso to wishing Vettel’s car will fail is an insult to the man. No, the Ferrari team will splinter apart badly after this year is over. Alonso is not a saint. He will be crushed by this and will not forgive them this time…
@Lauda Fan:
The chief designer said last year the F2012 will make us go wow, didn’t he. Mission accomplished.
Wow. Ferrari looks pathetic. Alonso needs a new ride…
It turns out Fernando’s car was also on used tires to get them up to temp quickly.
At least they tried something.
Obviously they’ve geared that car for race. Still, one piece of sh*it car…
Seb and Lewis in a different dimension.
Schumi at his best.
Good performance by Massa as well.
Alonso has fallen apart.