Webber takes first pole of the season

Mark Webber will start Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix from pole position after beating his teammate Sebastian Vettel in the qualifying session.

Pole position was a Red Bull-only contest as none of their rivals was able to get any close. It is Webber’s first pole of the season and brings an end to Vettel’s pole streak.

Lewis Hamilton was third fastest, 0.9s behind Webber. Fernando Alonso came really close to beating him but ended 0.003s behind. He still took fourth, thus relegating Jenson Button to fifth place on the grid. He will be joined on the third row by Vitaly Petrov.

The fourth row will be formed by Rosberg and Massa. Maldonado and Schumacher will line up on the fifth row.

How the session panned out :

Q1

The first segment of qualifying slowly came to life, while frantic work was ongoing in the Renault garage. The team tried its best to replace all the systems damaged on Heidfeld’s car during the morning practice session – part of the rear of the German’s R31 had caught fire because of a cracked exhaust.

The Red Bulls quickly took things in charge and were first and second at the midway point. As expected, most of the teams used a set of soft tyres and upset the hierarchy. Petrov popped up at the front while Kobayashi, Buemi and Alguersuari split the Red Bulls of Webber and Vettel.

Schumacher then took over at the front and set the fastest time in Q1.

Heidfeld was unable to join the action and was the first eliminated. He went out with d’Ambrosio, Karthikeyan, Liuzzi, Glock, Barrichello – who suffered from a gearbox problem - and Trulli.

Interestingly, Ferrari and Mercedes felt the need to do a run on the softer tyre in this first segment.

Q2

Red Bull were the first to blink, sending Vettel and Webber out for a run on the soft tyre.

Their move prompted the other teams to react and more cars were soon out on track.

Vettel set the benchmark, which was also the fastest time of the weekend, 0.2s quicker than Webber. The McLarens slotted in third and fourth fastest. Alonso completed the top five.

The top four pitted after their early run and remained in the pits, watching as the others fought for the remaining top ten spots.

Both Mercedes drivers earned their place in Q3, as well as Alonso, Maldonado, Petrov and Massa.

Eliminated were Buemi, Perez, Alguersuari, Kobayashi, Kovalainen, di Resta and Sutil.

Q3

This time round, McLaren blinked first but was closely followed by Red Bull.

Hamilton and Button did their best but couldn’t match the pace of the flying RB7. Webber was two tenths of a second faster than his teammate and nearly a second faster than the best McLaren.

The Australian had a hand on pole position and could start celebrating as both he and Vettel climbed out of their car. Crucially, only Webber could use his KERS.

As the four of them pitted, their rivals came out a single run. Alonso set the fourth fastest time to oust Button from the second row.

Qualifying session classification: