Formula One

Vettel flies to European Grand Prix Pole.

“It will be a difficult race and difficult to predict, We have seen too much this year to sit here on Saturday afternoon and predict what is going to happen. It is easier to predict football than the ranking for the race!

It will be hotter tomorrow and there will be a lot of cars to look out for. Ferrari is very competitive, Williams is quick, Lotus proved [its speed] in Bahrain.

This year, grid position is obviously important, but perhaps not as important.

Q1 and Q2 were not to our liking and we were struggling to find the balance that we had early on this weekend during practice. But we made a good recovery.

“I had to use a second set of options in Q2 as it was very tight and my [first] time was not good enough, but with the second set it was good to go again.

I knew that in qualifying, if I go at the end and the track comes in a bit more, then it should be good enough for pole. But in the end it was a surprising gap.

The guys have worked really hard this weekend in the garage to make sure that we brought a couple of new parts to the car. They seem to work and I am looking forward to the race tomorrow.”

Pos Driver Team Time Gap 
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m38.086s
 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m38.410s  + 0.324
 3.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault     1m38.475s  + 0.389
 4.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault        1m38.505s  + 0.419
 5.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault        1m38.513s  + 0.427
 6.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m38.623s  + 0.537
 7.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m38.741s  + 0.655
 8.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes 1m38.752s  + 0.666
 9.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m38.801s  + 0.715
10.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m38.992s  + 0.906
Q2 cut-off time: 1m38.703s Gap **
11.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m38.707s  + 0.218
12.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m38.770s  + 0.281
13.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m38.780s  + 0.291
14.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault     1m39.207s  + 0.718
15.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m39.358s  + 0.869
16.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault     1m40.295s  + 1.806
17.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m40.358s  + 1.869
Q1 cut-off time: 1m40.087s Gap *
18.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m40.203s  + 1.378
19.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m40.395s  + 1.570
20.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault     1m40.457s  + 1.632
21.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth         1m42.171s  + 3.346
22.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m42.527s  + 3.702
23.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth    1m42.675s  + 3.850