Vettel Takes 13th Pole in India

BUDDH, India- RIS - Even a circuit that has never been used before did not stop Sebastian Vettel from taking his 13th pole of the season as the German recorded a 1:24:178 best lap for Sunday’s inaugural Grand Prix of India at the Buddah International Circuit. Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber finished second and third, respectively.

"It was an interesting qualifying session; a new circuit and a new challenge” stated Vettel.  “Obviously I'm very happy to be on the front row. I don't know if being on the left or the right side of the track (we are on the left), is really an advantage or not; there's not one side that seems to be the clean side, as we tend to run down the middle. It was a good battle and after the first run it was very close, so I knew I had to do a little bit better on the second. We decided to only do one timed lap each time, it was still a bit slippery, but overall I'm very happy.”

Timo Glock got the first session underway with the fact that the Virgin driver never took his car out onto the circuit, sustaining a gearbox issue that will have the German start the race from last position. While Glock was suffering, Renault’s Vitaly Petrov was flying and recorded the best time for the session.

Vettel finally found his rhythm in the second period and improved his time to  a 1:24:657, while Michael Schumacher failed to move on to the next session and will start from 12th. Both Petrov and his Renault teammate Bruno Senna also eliminated, after making a few adjustments on the car.

But in a final push, Vettel even improved his time, to give himself his 13th pole position of the season, tying him with legends Aryton Senna and Alain Prost, and only one away from the all-time record of Nigel Mansell. Fernando Alonso led the rest in fourth, while Jenson Button’s last second push netted him fifth. Felipe Massa had a scary incident at the end of the session, when his right front suspension broke over a curb, and sent the Brazilians’ car into the barriers. Luckily, the Ferrari driver was unhurt and qualified sixth.

"What happened on my last timed lap was a real shame.” Said Massa. “Today, we had the potential to secure a good placing, as Fernando demonstrated and as can also be seen from the fact my sixth best time was set with a rather slow third sector. I came into Turn 8 and went over the kerb and the front right suspension gave way in the impact with the raised orange part, which in my opinion is too high at this point. It's a very fast corner, taken at around 215 km/h and it could be arranged differently. These are details that need improving for next year. I repeat, I am disappointed, because the car has been going well all weekend long. Now I find myself with one less set of Softs and with a broken front wing. It was the new one, which we had here for the first time and it delivered a bit extra in terms of performance. Tomorrow, overtaking will be difficult because of the dirt on track, but I think we will still see a lot."

Nico Rosberg took seventh, while Adrian Sutil, and the Toro Rosso drivers of Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Algusuari, who decided to save their tires for race day, rounded out the top ten.

Considering that Vettel is one pole position away from tying a record, and the squad has set a world record for most team poles in a season, Vettel remains calm and cool about race day.

“Tomorrow it going to be a long race, we start starting the best possible position, so we'll see what happens." He said.