Vettel takes dominant pole in Hungary

Sebastian Vettel set a blistering pace in Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session to take pole position for the Hungarian GP.

The Red Bull drivers were the biggest favorites at the start of the session, having dominated the weekend so far. The qualifying session went according to plan for the Milton Keynes-based team as its two cars set the fastest time in Q1, Q2 and Q3 to lock out the front row of the grid.

Second fastest, Webber was three tenths of a second slower than his teammate. Alonso was once again the only one able to somehow challenge the Red Bulls but was a massive 1.2s down on pole.

He will be joined on the second row of the grid by his Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa. Hamilton will line up on the third row of the grid alongside Nico Rosberg.

For the first time this season, Vitaly Petrov out-qualified his teammate Robert Kubica. The two Renault drivers will share the fourth row of the grid.

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

Q1

Both Renault’s of Petrov and Kubica were the first to leave the pits and were followed by the Williams of Hulkenberg and Barrichello.

With traffic expected to be an issue in this first part of the session, the frontrunners didn’t wait too long before going out and posting a time on board. Five minutes into this session, the whole field was on track.

Petrov and Kubica set the early pace for Renault, until Vettel and Webber took charge at the front. Alonso and Hamilton managed to split them although Vettel’s best time was two seconds slower than Webber’s best time in FP3.

The Australian bounced back from P5 to P1 and made it a Red Bull one-two once again. Relegated down to fourth by the Ferraris of Massa and Alonso, Vettel slightly upped the pace to set a 1’20’’417 and take over at the front.

As the final run was about to start, Adrian Sutil was the one at risk. The German improved to P12, leaving Buemi in the dreaded 18th position. The Toro Rosso driver also managed to move up some places and the ‘unlucky loser’ spot eventually went to Sauber’s Kobayashi.

The Japanese was eliminated along with Glock, Kovalainen, Trulli, di Grassi, Senna and Yamamoto.

Q2

The pace hotted up in Q2 as the seventeen drivers left battled it out for the coveted top ten spots.

Felipe Massa led them out of the pitlane as the light turned green. The Brazilian and his Ferrari teammate took charge at the front but had no answer to the Red Bulls’ pace. Vettel set a 1’19’’573 to lead Webber by five tenths of a second. In third place, Alonso was over one second down on the German.

Even if they looked safe, the frontrunners all went out for a run on the soft tyres at the end of the session. Webber – on the super-softs - found some improvement to beat his teammate by a really small margin: 0.022s.

Jenson Button (11th) and Michael Schumacher (14th) failed to make the cut, as well as Barrichello, Sutil, Buemi, Liuzzi and Alguersuari.

Alonso was once again the closest rival of the Red Bulls, albeit six tenths of a second down on them.

Q3

Alonso rushed out of the pits, while the Red Bulls bided their time. The Ferrari driver immediately showed his hand with a 1’19’’987. Webber responded with a 1’19’’184 but Vettel did even better and crossed the line with a blistering 1’18’’773!

They all had one attempt left. Alonso was the first to come across the finish line and was unable to improve. Pole position could only go to one of the Red Bull drivers by then and it remained in Vettel’s hands as Webber couldn’t match his pace.