Vettel flies to pole in Oz

Red Bull locks the front row of the grid

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27 March 2010 - 08:19
Vettel flies to pole in Oz

Sebastian Vettel took pole position for the Australian GP ahead of team mate Mark Webber.

Red Bull Racing thus locks the front row of the grid. Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button will line up on the second row.

Let’s have a look at how the session panned out:

Q1

Both Force Indias of Liuzzi and Sutil were the first to leave the pits, quickly followed by the rest of the field bar the McLaren Mercedes of Button and Hamilton.

Sutil set the early pace but was demoted by Fernando Alonso with 15 minutes to go. The Ferrari held onto the top spot for some minutes but was relegated to 2nd by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel. The German lapped in 1’24’’774 to conclude Q1 on top ahead of Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg and both McLarens of Button and Hamilton.

Alonso was fifth fastest with local favorite Webber sixth.

Unsurprisingly, all six drivers from the new teams were eliminated at the end of Q1 with Renault’s Vitaly Petrov joining them as he failed to improve on his last run (has a major moment exiting Turn 12).

Q2

Held under the constant threat of rain, the second part of qualifying saw Mark Webber having a good scrap with Fernando Alonso for first place… only for Sebastian Vettel to pip them both on his final run.

The German set a 1’24’’096 fastest time to beat his team mate Webber by 0.180s. Alonso was third fastest with Button fourth and Rosberg fifth.

Lewis Hamilton found himself in big trouble after having abandoned his first flying lap and struggled to match the pace of the front runners. So much that he could only set the 11th fastest time, thus missing the chance to make it through to Q3.

Buemi, Liuzzi, De la Rosa, Hulkenberg, Kobayashi and Alguersuari also went out.

Q3

The final part of qualifying saw a display of strength from the Red Bull Racing Team with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber fighting it out for pole position.

Extremely fast, the German driver had the edge on his Australian team mate with an impressive 1’23’’919 lap time – the fastest of the weekend.

He was the last to dip under the 1’24 barrier and vowed to “show them” at the end of the session.

Pos.DriverTeamQ1 timeQ2 timeQ3 time
01 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Renault 1.24.774 1.24.096 1.23.919
02 Mark Webber Red Bull Renault 1.25.286 1.24.276 1.24.035
03 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1.25.082 1.24.335 1.24.111
04 Jenson Button McLaren Mercedes 1.24.897 1.24.531 1.24.675
05 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1.25.548 1.25.010 1.24.837
06 Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 1.24.788 1.24.788 1.24.884
07 Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 1.25.351 1.24.871 1.24.927
08 Rubens Barrichello Williams Cosworth 1.25.702 1.25.085 1.25.217
09 Robert Kubica Renault 1.25.588 1.25.122 1.25.372
10 Adrian Sutil Force India Mercedes 1.25.504 1.25.046 1.26.036
---------------- --------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
11 Lewis Hamilton McLaren Mercedes 1.25.046 1.25.184
12 Sébastien Buemi Toro Rosso Ferrari 1.26.061 1.25.638
13 Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India Mercedes 1.26.170 1.25.743
14 Pedro de la Rosa Sauber Ferrari 1.26.089 1.25.747
15 Nico Hulkenberg Williams Cosworth 1.25.866 1.25.748
16 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber Ferrari 1.26.251 1.25.777
17 Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso Ferrari 1.26.095 1.26.089
---------------- --------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
18 Vitaly Petrov Renault 1.26.471
19 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus Cosworth 1.28.797
20 Jarno Trulli Lotus Cosworth 1.29.111
21 Timo Glock Virgin Racing Cosworth 1.29.592
22 Lucas di Grassi Virgin Racing Cosworth 1.30.185
23 Bruno Senna HRT F1 Cosworth 1.30.526
24 Karun Chandhok HRT F1 Cosworth 1.30.613

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