Pole joy for Vettelposted in F113 | 11 | 2010
RED BULL'S Sebastian Vettel bagged his 10th pole position of the year, and the team's 15th of the season to ensure he retains a strong chance of being crowned world champ at the end of tomorrow's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The brilliant German (pictured) scorched round the 3.5-mile Yas Marina circuit topping the timesheets in 1min 39.582secs to edge out the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton by just 0.031s. World championship leader Fernando Alonso, 0.398s slower than Vettel, starts third in his Ferrari alongside the McLaren of fourth-placed Jenson Button.
But while there was delight in one half of the Red Bull garage, there was abject disappointment in the other when Mark Webber, who trails Alonso by eight points — Vettel is s further seven adrift — could only manage fifth.
"That wasn't very good," the gutted Aussie, who finished 0.531s behind his team-mate, said immediately afterwards. "There's a long way to go tomorrow, but I'm disappointed. I just didn't get it right. I need to be there at the end tomorrow to have my chance of winning the championship, but I haven't helped myself with my position today."
The formation at the front of the grid promises a dazzling sprint to the first corner with the opening lap predicted to be the best, and most feisty of the year.
Hamilton, 24 points behind Alonso, knows he has to win the race to have any hopes of lifting his second championship, so he will be desperate to get ahead of Vettel immediately.
Th same pressure sits on Webber's shoulders. The Aussie — who lines up alongside the second Ferrari of Felipe Massa in sixth — can't afford to get stuck behind fourth-placed Button and knows he has to finish ahead of Alonso, so he too will be aggressive at the start.
Alonso meanwhile, bidding to win his third world championship after being 47 points off the pace in the middle of the year, believes he's in a strong position to see off his rivals.
"I think we are more or less in the same situation as we were two days ago before first practice," the Spaniard said. "We know the situation, we know the four contenders.
"I think everything is on tomorrow's race, anything can happen and we saw in last few events things changed; in Korea the Red Bulls were very strong and lost the race with mechanical issues, in Brazil we saw some problems with pitstops.
"In the race anything can happen, we need to complete 55 laps without any problems. It will be a tough race, a long race, but we are in a position where we are very strong."
Red Bull boss Christian Horner though is comfirtable both his drivers know exactly what they have to do tomorrow.
"The job for Sebastian is quite clear, he's got to go, get his head down and get on with it," Horner said. "Mark has to pass Alonso, he can't afford to finish behind him. The only way to beat him is going to be to overtake him now.
"We need good pit work, good starts; we know we've got a good race car. The degredation on the soft tyre is going to be a key factor tomorrow. That's something we looked pretty good on yesterday, it's going to be a long race.
"Sebastian got the job done on that lap and unfortunately Mark has lost out to Jenson by less than a tenth. It's a shame for Mark he's not further up. It was a choice on that last run whether you go with one lap. The tyres didn't feel like they were going to be ready. Neither driver wanted to do a one-lap run, they wanted to do a sequence of laps. Unfortunately for Mark it just hasn't come together for him."
Abu Dhabi GP Grid: 1 Vettel; 2 Hamilton; 3 Alonso; 4 Button; 5 Webber; 6 Massa; 7 Barrichello; 8 Schumacher; 9 Rosberg; 10 Petrov
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Jim McGill
(Photo: Getty Images)