Vettel sneaks Malay poleposted in F109 | 04 | 2011
BATHGATE'S PAUL DI RESTA again outqualified his Force India team-mate Adrian Sutil, but it was Red Bull's Sebastien Vettel who bagged his second pole position of the year when he topped the timesheets in qualifying for tomorrow's Malaysia Grand Prix.
Current world champ Vettel posted the 17th pole position of his career as he edged out the resurgent McLaren of Lewis Hamilton; the former world champ was just 0.104s behind Vettel's fastest lap of 1min 34.870secs round the Sepang circuit near Kuala Lumpar.
But unlike a fortnight ago where Vettel appeared to dominate the weekend with ease, the German — whose team-mate Mark Webber starts third — admitted he and the team needed to rely on the additional power supplied by their KERS system this weekend.
"I don't think either Mark or myself would be in the top three today if we hadn't run KERS," Vettel said afterwards. "It was quite a challenging weekend until qualifying. I was happy with the car but we never got into a rhythm, so yesterday was not as smooth as we hoped for.
"This morning we knew we had it in the car, the main thing was believing in it. We got criticism last time for not running KERS and we came here and solved most of our problems. I think if we would not had it today then we would not be here, both of us, so it is a great achievement, compliments to those guys. We work hand-in-hand so we are pleased."
Hamilton meanwhile, whose McLaren team-mate Jenson Button was fastest in Q2 but slid back to fourth in the final shoot-out, admitted he wasn't disappointed not to be on pole.
"I don't think we can be disappointed," Hamilton, who was 0.8s behind Vettel in qualifying in Australia a fortnight ago, said today. "Going into the last race we did a fantastic job to be up there on the Red Bulls.
"I'm proud to be getting some new parts this weekend, we can be happy with it. I would have loved to be on the front row and be on P1, but red Bull still have the slight edge.
"We have closed the gap a little bit it seems here. The lap wasn't perfect so I have to improve on that. We always expected they might have a little bit in hand, especially going into the last run. They normally tend to pull something out of the bag, and they pull a bit of pace towards the end of Q3. On my lap we lost a little bit of time in one corner so I cannot be too disappointed."
Behind the top four, Fernando Alonso led the chasing pack, but the frustrated Ferrari driver was almost a second behind Vettel with a best of 1m35.802s. Nick Heidfeld outpaced his Renault team-mate Viatly Petrov to qualify sixth, two places ahead of the Russian in eighth, with the second Ferari of Feilpe Massa sandwiched in between.
Mercedes again suffered another disappoint day. Seven-times world champ Michael Schumacher didn't manage to get into the top 10 and starts 11th, while team-mate Nico Rosberg could only manage a distant ninth, 1.939s slower than Vettel. Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi rounded off the top 10.
Di Resta meanwhile won his personal battle with team-mate Sutil. The Scot clocked a best time of 1m37.370s in Q2 to finish comfortably 0.223s ahead of the German. Di Resta lines up 14th, three places ahead of Sutil.
Malaysian Grand Prix — Qualifying:
1. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull-Renault — 1m34.870s;
2. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren-Mercedes — 1m34.974s + 0.104;
3. Mark Webber, Red Bull-Renault — 1m35.179s + 0.309;
4. Jenson Button, McLaren-Mercedes — 1m35.200s + 0.330;
5. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari — 1m35.802s + 0.932;
6. Nick Heidfeld, Renault — 1m36.124s + 1.254;
7. Felipe Massa, Ferrari — 1m36.251s + 1.381;
8. Vitaly Petrov, Renault — 1m36.324s + 1.454;
9. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes — 1m36.809s + 1.939;
10. Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber-Ferrari — 1m36.820s + 1.950.
Q2 cut-off time: 1m36.811s
11. Michael Schumacher, Mercedes — 1m37.035s + 1.466;
12. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso-Ferrari — 1m37.160s + 1.591;
13. Jaime Alguersuari, Toro Rosso-Ferrari — 1m37.347s + 1.778;
14. Paul di Resta, Force India-Mercedes — 1m37.370s + 1.801;
15. Rubens Barrichello, Williams-Cosworth — 1m37.496s + 1.927;
16. Sergio Perez, auber-Ferrari — 1m37.528s + 1.959;
17. Adrian Sutil, Force India-Mercedes — 1m37.593s + 2.024.
Q3 cut-off time: 1m38.163s
18. Pastor Maldonado, Williams-Cosworth — 1m38.276s + 1.532;
19. Heikki Kovalainen, Lotus-Renault — 1m38.645s + 1.901;
20. Jarno Trulli, Lotus-Renault — 1m38.791s + 2.047;
21. Timo Glock, Virgin-Cosworth — 1m40.648s + 3.904;
22. Jerome D'Ambrosio, Virgin-Cosworth — 1m41.001s + 4.257;
23. Tonio Liuzzi, HRT-Cosworth — 1m41.549s + 4.805;
24. Narain Karthikeyan, HRT-Cosworth — 1m42.574s + 5.830.
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Jim McGill
Photo: Getty Images