Red Bull will start 1–2 at the Formula One Japanese Grand Prix, with Sebastian Vettel winning the pole and teammate Mark Webber starting second.
Vettel lapped the challenging Suzuka circuit in 1:30.839, the only driver to break into the ninety-second range. Webber was not far behind with 1:31.090. It seems Red Bull has overcome the difficulties its RB8 chassis had early in the season, and boosted by Lewis Hamilton’s mechanical failure at Singapore, Sebastian Vettel is ready to start a late-season run for his third drivers’ championship.
“I’m very, very happy with today’s result,” Vettel said in the post-qualifying press conference, broadcast on Speed-TV. “I think we had a very, very smooth qualifying session, nearly perfect, so we couldn’t really ask for more. The car felt fantastic from the start.
“We didn’t really have the best start to the weekend; yesterday morning I wasn’t very happy but then we seemed to get it better every time we go out. I was able to pick up a little bit overnight and it came together nicely and now obviously we hope for a very good race tomorrow.”
It was Vettel’s 34th career pole.
McLaren’s Jenson Button qualified third, a full two tenths off of Webber’s pace and more than four-tenths behind Vettel. Button was happy with the car, despite being considerably slower; he thought that tire strategy might give McLaren an edge.
Button will start eighth after an unscheduled gearbox change after Singapore. Engineers found he had the same problem that ended his team mate Lewis Hamilton’s winning run in that race, so Button will likely finish but will have to work harder to finish well.
“It was a good qualifying session—both my Q3 laps felt good,” Button said in a McLaren press release. “We’ve improved the car a lot since yesterday, when we tried a very low-downforce set-up to help with overtaking. We pulled back from that for today, and I feel a lot happier with the car.
“My gearbox penalty means it’s disappointing to be starting so far back, though. Overtaking has never been easy around here – even with the introduction of DRS—and, that being the case, it’s quite a surprise that the DRS zone has been shortened for this year.
“But I love racing around here. And because everyone’s strategy could be up in the air tomorrow—because there’s been quite a lot of tire graining and blistering—things could still be a bit unpredictable.
“The championship is a long shot for me, I know that, but I‘d love to do well in front of the Japanese crowd; I’ll be going for the win.”
