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Red Bull-Renault drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber qualified 1–2 for the Formula One Indian Grand Prix. (Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty Images)
For the third straight race, Red Bull Racing drivers have locked out the front row at a Formula One Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel, with three consecutive wins, took his third pole in four races while teammate Mark Webber qualified second.
McLaren finally seems to have found its form; drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button qualified third and fourth, while Ferrari took the next two spots, with Fernando Alonso just ahead of Felipe Massa.
Vettel was fastest on the day by .044 second with a lap at 1.25.283 and Webber at 1.25.327; the gap back to Hamilton is a significant .261 seconds, with Button another .115 behind. Alonso in the fastest Ferrari managed 1.25.773, .114 behind Button but .490 behind Vettel.
Seventh was Kimi Raikkönen of Lotus at 1.26.740, .379 behind Massa and .953 off the pole.
Sebastian Vettel felt he could have gone faster on his qualifying lap. (Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images)
All indications are that this will be another Red Bull runaway. Adrian Newey has gotten the RB8 to work better than any of its competitors. If Sebastian Vettel makes his usual good start, he might lead light-to-checker.
Worse news for the opposition: Vettel feels he could have gone faster.
“My first run, I did a mistake in Turn Four and had to abort the lap, so that was not as per plan. Before that obviously we had, yeah, quite a good qualifying session, so we decided to go obviously for another run and had only one set of tires left,” he told formula1.com.
“Fortunately I get the lap together and was very happy with the lap itself. Here and there potentially could have been a bit faster, especially around Turn Four because this time I made sure I’m not locking up the fronts.”
Vettel won the Indian Grand Prix from the pole, but he downplayed the significance of qualifying fastest.
“You know the races these days: you know that a lot of things can happen so I don’t think that means a lot,” he said. “Obviously I’m very happy to be on pole; it’s the best possible position to start and I think if you ask those two they would like to start in that position, so yeah, I’m very happy with that but there’s a hard race coming up tomorrow.
“I think we had a bit of a surprise on Friday in terms of long runs; everyone was quite competitive and tires seemed to last reasonably well so we’ll see what that means for strategy tomorrow.”
Webber also made an error in his qualifying lap, and could have gone faster.
“As Seb said, it wasn’t the smoothest session for him and I think also the same for me. The lap itself wasn’t too bad, last corner got onto the Astroturf a bit on the exit, so for sure didn’t have the cleanest run to the start/finish line so that was disappointing,” he explained.
“But I’m driving the car. I did my best, it was close, as you say a pretty tight run thing between both Seb and I and then I didn’t get to do my last attempt. The McLarens doing very slow outlaps to get their tires ready for the lap which is different to us and I had no grip in the first sector, so the build lap was… I didn’t get to do my second attempt, which would have been nice but anyway I was surprised to end up second, to be honest, but I’ll take that and we can have a good race from there tomorrow.”
Lewis Hamilton was satisfied with third after a string of disappointing finishes.
“I’m very satisfied that I’ll be starting tomorrow’s race from the second row. This is one of the best circuits we race on and I definitely think third position gives us a fighting chance to win tomorrow,: he said in a team statement.
“Even if I’d had a perfect qualifying lap, I think I’d only have found another tenth. I reckon I got everything out of the car, particularly on my final run in Q3; the middle and last sectors were particularly strong.
“At the start tomorrow, I feel I have a lot less to lose than Sebastian [Vettel] in front of me, so I’ll certainly be pushing a bit. Seb has more to worry about than I do, and, if I can get up with the two Red Bulls, I’d love to take a win for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes.
“We have the race pace to be able to stay with the Red Bulls, so as I say a win is definitely possible.”
The 2012 Fiormula One Indian Grand Prix takes starts at 5:30 a.m. EDT on Sunday, Oct. 28. Coverage in the U.S. begins at 5 on Speed-TV. Live timing and scoring can be accessed at formula1.com.
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|
2012 Formula One Airtel Indian Grand Prix Qualifying |
|||||||||
|
# |
driver |
team |
Q1 |
Q2 |
Q3 |
laps |
gap |
diff. |
|
|
1 |
1 |
1:26.387 |
1:25.435 |
1:25.283 |
13 |
|
|
||
|
2 |
2 |
1:26.744 |
1:25.610 |
1:25.327 |
17 |
.044 |
|
||
|
3 |
4 |
1:26.516 |
1:25.816 |
1:25.544 |
23 |
.217 |
.261 |
||
|
4 |
3 |
1:26.564 |
1:25.467 |
1:25.659 |
21 |
.115 |
.376 |
||
|
5 |
5 |
1:26.829 |
1:25.834 |
1:25.773 |
21 |
.114 |
.490 |
||
|
6 |
6 |
1:26.939 |
1:26.111 |
1:25.857 |
18 |
.084 |
.574 |
||
|
7 |
9 |
1:26.740 |
1:26.101 |
1:26.236 |
25 |
.379 |
.953 |
||
|
8 |
15 |
1:27.179 |
1:26.076 |
1:26.360 |
23 |
.124 |
1.077 |
||
|
9 |
18 |
1:26.048 |
1:25.983 |
1:26.713 |
24 |
|
|
||
|
10 |
8 |
1:26.458 |
1:25.976 |
No time |
23 |
|
|
||
|
11 |
10 |
1:26.897 |
1:26.136 |
16 |
|
|
|||
|
12 |
12 |
1:27.185 |
1:26.241 |
20 |
|
|
|||
|
13 |
19 |
1:26.851 |
1:26.331 |
19 |
|
|
|||
|
14 |
7 |
1:27.482 |
1:26.574 |
19 |
|
|
|||
|
15 |
16 |
1:27.006 |
1:26.777 |
19 |
|
|
|||
|
16 |
11 |
1:27.462 |
1:26.989 |
19 |
|
|
|||
|
17 |
14 |
1:27.517 |
1:27.219 |
17 |
|
|
|||
|
18 |
17 |
1:27.525 |
11 |
|
|
||||
|
19 |
21 |
1:28.756 |
10 |
|
|
||||
|
20 |
20 |
1:29.500 |
10 |
|
|
||||
|
21 |
24 |
1:29.613 |
11 |
|
|
||||
|
22 |
22 |
1:30.592 |
8 |
|
|
||||
|
23 |
23 |
1:30.593 |
10 |
|
|
||||
|
24 |
25 |
1:30.662 |
11 |
|
|
||||
