Red Bull 1-2 in Koreaposted in F123 | 10 | 2010
RED BULL grabbed its eighth front row lock-out of the season when Sebastian Vettel sealed his ninth pole position of the year for tomorrow's Korean Grand Prix. The German outpaced his team-mate and championship leader Mark Webber 0.074secs.
"It is a very good achievement from all of us because yesterday was not smooth running," Vettel (pictured), who lines up 14 points behind Aussie Webber, said after topping the timesheets with a 1min 35.585secs. "We tried something which didn't work. On a new track I had very few laps. We tried to save the car a bit and did little running, so had to take what I could out of qualifying."
Webber meanwhile, who starts on the slippery side of the new 3.49-mile circuit, admitted he was content with second place.
"It was very close, I got second on the grid, which is a lot better off than other positions," he explained. "It would be nice to get pole, but we can still do well from second. Today went to plan, it was pretty close.
"I wasn't overtly happy with the first lap on the options, I thought it was better for me to do two times and it turned out to be working not too bad. My second lap was my best so I suppose it was a good lap time but not quite enough to be the fastest."
Behind the two Red Bulls, who could clinch the manufacturers' championship for the team tomorrow, Ferrari No1 Alonso, tied on points with Vettel, starts third alongside the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton. Alonso though admits his first priority is to finish the race to ensure he's still in a position to fight for the title in the two remaining grands prix in Brazil and Abu Dhabi.
"We need to be calm and finish the race," the double world champ said. "Maybe tomorrow all five championship rivals will finish the race, but we cannot be one of those who does not finish. We need to keep scoring points in every race, and I am sure with we will be very happy with that."
"And again, once more it is our maximum potential today, which in a way is very good new because qualifying is not our strongest point of the weekend and here it looks close to RBR, so it looks good for tomorrow."
Hamilton meanwhile, 0.477s behind Vettel, admitted fourth was the best he could have been expected to achieve.
"I think I got more than what we had in the car out of it and I couldn't really ask for anymore," the McLaren driver said. "I don't know where they found half a second from, but still we are in the fight and we have got some long straights so we will see what happens. It may suit us."
Team-mate Jenson Button though was frustrated by the lack of pace which left him seventh, blaming tyres issues for his best time of 1:36.731s, 1.146s off pole and 0.669s behind Hamilton.
"The car was good yesterday and this morning we were very happy with it," the 2009 world champ explained. "But this afternoon I just couldn't get the tyre temperature and really struggled with locking, front and rear, and generally low grip.
"I couldn't find any grip out there. I'm disappointed to be that far down, Lewis was a lot quicker, but still only fourth. So there's a bit of head-scratching going to be going on."
Renault's Robert Kubica starts eighth, ahead of Michael Schumacher's Mercedes and the Williams of Rubens Barrichello. Schumacher was reprimanded by the stewards for blocking his former Ferarri team-mate during the second qualifying session.
There was frustration and disappointment for Force India with Adrian Sutil and Tonio Liuzzi managing just 14th and 18th respectively. It was the fourth time this season the Italian has failed to make it out of Q1 and increases the pressure on him being replaced by Scot Paul di Resta next season.
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Jim McGill
(Photo: Getty Images)