Motorsports Mondial

Sebastian Vettel grabs pole for the Indian Grand Prix.

VETTEL: Yeah, it was a good session for us. New circuit, new venue, tricky for all of us first time round in qualifying. I think it was tricky. We have seen all weekend with the dust on the track so in the end we ended up with one racing line clear of dirt and just a little bit out it makes you lose a lot of time so it was quite tricky. But I think we managed pretty well. The car was fantastic, to be honest since yesterday, this morning as well and throughout qualifying. I think in the end there was a little bit left in the first sector. It is quite tricky, I think we saw some people going for two times laps, others only one. I think then it becomes a bit trickier to hit the first sector. There is a long straight as well after Turn Three so you want to make sure you don’t lose time so I am extremely happy. It is good to be here. I think it is a very interesting race, a challenging circuit, looking forward to tomorrow and first time in India so excited to race tomorrow.

WEBBER: Yeah, as Seb said it has been a good challenge for all of us, new venue. Tricky to work out the right strategy for qualifying. The tyres weren’t easy for one timed laps so we had to work out how we were going to do the strategy. Lots of teams tried different styles to get the best lap time out of the car. First sector it was tricky to get right on one time. I could have done better in the first sector on my only run basically and then I got yellow flags with Felipe (Massa), so I couldn’t do my second lap. But overall good job from the team. Came to a new venue but prepared well and have laid a good foundation for a good race tomorrow.

HAMILTON: It was interesting that you smile about that. No, really it has been a good day for me. I am quite surprised that we were able to split the Red Bulls and it is great to be on the front row in terms of how we qualified. Of course, we had the penalty which was a bit of a silly mistake from myself and I have paid the price but from tomorrow we have good race pace and it is a long race with two DRS zones so overtaking should be a lot easier than perhaps other places. I am still optimistic regardless of where I start.

SENNA: “That was definitely disappointing. The circuit evolved from this morning and the changes made to the car took me, I believe, in the wrong direction given the conditions of the track. I struggled a lot with balance and paid the price for that. I have one set of new soft tyres so it’s going to be difficult tomorrow, but I’m hoping that maybe the temperature will be lower and then perhaps we will have a stronger day than today. I think the track has evolved more to suit other cars, but maybe we’ll look better tomorrow at the start of the race, particularly on the high fuel load that we will have. The level of tyre degradation looked fine in FP3 so let’s see how that leaves us for the race.”

Pos Driver Team Time Gap 
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m24.178s
 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m24.474s  + 0.296
 3.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m24.508s  + 0.330
 4.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m24.519s  + 0.341
 5.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m24.950s  + 0.772
 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m25.122s  + 0.944
 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m25.451s  + 1.273
 8.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes
 9.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari
10.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari
Q2 cut-off time: 1m26.319s Gap **
11.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              1m26.319s   + 1.662
12.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m26.337s   + 1.680
13.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m26.503s   + 1.846
14.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m26.537s   + 1.880
15.  Bruno Senna           Renault              1m26.651s   + 1.994
16.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m27.247s   + 2.590
17.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m27.562s   + 2.905
Q1 cut-off time: 1m27.479s Gap *
18.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m27.876s   + 1.687
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault        1m28.565s   + 2.376
20.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault        1m28.752s   + 2.563
21.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m30.216s   + 4.027
22.  Daniel Ricciardo      HRT-Cosworth         1m30.238s   + 4.049
23.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth      1m30.866s   + 4.677
24.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth      1m34.046s   + 7.857