Vettel: We need to focus on ourselves

Sebastian Vettel will line up at the front of the field for tomorrow’s US Grand Prix, with Mark Webber directly behind him on the grid in third place.

Sebastian has been in dominant form at the new Circuit of the Americas, topping the time sheets in all three free practice sessions and he continued to set the pace in qualifying. After comfortably progressing through the opening segments Seb then lit up the timing screens in Q3 to dislodge Lewis Hamilton from provisional pole position after the McLaren driver had done the same to Webber with his own run.

Afterwards, Sebastian admitted that his 36th career pole position leaves him confident of a good race tomorrow.

“It’s good to start from pole and be on the clean side of the grid,” he said. “It was important to feel the car from the first session onwards, in order to get more out of it as the weekend developed – we can be happy with the result and look forward to tomorrow.

Sebastian’s sole remaining title rival, Fernando Alonso, qualified in ninth position but Vettel insisted he would be focusing on his own race and not the starting position of a competitor.

“In terms of the championship, we need to focus on ourselves and try to get the best result that we can,” he said. “If you’re thinking about where the others are, then you don’t get the optimum from yourself, and that’s what we need to focus on. Our job is done today, but so far no one has scored any points.”

Mark was left pleased with his third place behind Hamilton, admitting that starting on the clean side of the track behind his team-mate is a bonus.

“We were all a bit concerned about the grip difference between the left and right hand side of the grid,” he said. “We were able to make some practice starts after P3, which was important and made it a bit more even. The field wasn’t that settled today during qualifying, but it’s a tricky venue on tyres and that was the theme of the day.

“I’m happy to be third. The strategy for tomorrow looks reasonably straightforward, but it’s the first time we will have raced here, so we need to stay on our toes and be flexible if needed.”

Of the duo’s performance, Team Principal Christian Horner said: “A very strong qualifying for the team and it’s great to get the first pole at the Circuit of The Americas in Texas.

“Sebastian has been quickest in every session of the weekend so far and converted it into an excellent pole position, backed up by a solid third pace from Mark on what will hopefully be the cleaner side of the grid,” he added. “So, a strong start to the weekend but it’s now important that we convert these positions into a strong result.”

With Mark third, fourth place in the session went to Lotus’ Romain Grosjean, but the Frenchman will drop five places after an unscheduled gearbox change. Fifth in the session was Grosjean’s team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, while Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher finished sixth, ahead of Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, Alonso and Williams’ Pastor Maldonado.