Dominant Vettel Takes Turkey Pole at BetLM

Dominant Vettel Takes Turkey Pole

By Sarah Holt
BBC Sport at Istan­bul Park

World cham­pion Sebas­t­ian Vet­tel was uncatch­able in Turkey, cap­tur­ing his fourth pole in as many races this year.

The Ger­man Red Bull dri­ver set his fastest lap of one minute 25.079 sec­onds, then sat in the garage to watch his rivals fail to match him.

Mark Web­ber joined his team-mate on the front row, 0.405secs behind, with Nico Ros­berg third for Mercedes.

McLaren’s Lewis Hamil­ton and Jen­son But­ton were fourth and sixth, sand­wich­ing Fer­nando Alonso’s Ferrari.

Vet­tel has looked unstop­pable in qual­i­fy­ing all year but this time he knew it as he and Web­ber opted not to do sec­ond runs in qual­i­fy­ing, leav­ing their rivals to try – and ulti­mately fail – to bet­ter Red Bull’s times.

The world cham­pion had already proved how unshake­able he was, imme­di­ately get­ting up to speed on Sat­ur­day after sit­ting out prac­tice on Fri­day after­noon because of a heavy crash.

“We were there from the begin­ning and I am very happy. I like the track, which helps and it was nice to see that after not many laps I was able to find the rhythm,” he said.

“Both Mark and myself decided to skip the sec­ond run, and it is a strange feel­ing because the oth­ers are on track and there is noth­ing you can do.”

BBC F1 com­men­ta­tor Mar­tin Brun­dle said: “There is no stop­ping this young man.

“Whichever way you cut it, that was an incred­i­bly quick lap time.

“Vet­tel has become the first man since McLaren’s Mika Hakki­nen in 1999 to cap­ture the first four poles in any season.”

After a dis­mal run of form in qual­i­fy­ing, Web­ber will be encour­aged to find him­self installed as Vettel’s clos­est chal­lenger for the first time this season.

The Aus­tralian, who bat­tled from 18th to third in China, also chose not to go out for a final run.

Web­ber took pole in Turkey last sea­son but was spec­tac­u­larly taken out by his team-mate when Vet­tel chal­lenged him for the lead, but team boss Chris­t­ian Horner said he did not expect a repeat on Sunday.

“They know what hap­pened and they learn their lessons,” Horner said. “They are here to get the best result for the team.”

Mer­cedes, who ran a new rear wing and brake ducts in Istan­bul, had been hang­ing onto Red Bull’s coat tails dur­ing final prac­tice on Sat­ur­day and Ros­berg under­lined the team’s improve­ment by claim­ing third.

Ros­berg qual­i­fied just half a sec­ond behind Vet­tel with team-mate Michael Schu­macher close behind in eighth.

“I’m not happy at all to be so far off,” Schu­macher said. “We couldn’t repro­duce what we did this morning.

“The more I pushed the more things went wrong and I had no grip left.”

Mer­cedes team prin­ci­pal Ross Brawn said: “It was a great effort by every­body, I’m really pleased.”

How­ever, he did warn that the Ger­man team were still some way from fight­ing at the front.

Hamil­ton, who won the last race in China, lines up along­side Ros­berg on the sec­ond row after fin­ish­ing 0.546secs off the pace.

“It’s not pole posi­tion but it’s bet­ter than noth­ing,” said Hamil­ton. “I would have hoped for a lit­tle bit better.

“We are in the fight. We don’t have an extra set of soft tyres for the race and we’ve seen that Mer­cedes and Fer­rari have picked up their pace.”

But­ton rued prob­lems with his car’s han­dling but, like Hamil­ton, was con­fi­dent the McLaren would be more com­pet­i­tive in the race.

Fer­rari ran a raft of updates in Turkey – includ­ing new front and rear wings – in attempt to close the gap on Red Bull and McLaren

But the Ital­ian team had to work furi­ously before qual­i­fy­ing to solve prob­lems on both Felipe Massa and Alonso’s car.

The engine was changed in Massa’s Fer­rari while Alonso’s car was given a thor­ough check after he lost power in final practice.

Alonso lines up in fifth with Massa, a three-time race win­ner in Istan­bul, start­ing in 10th after he failed to go out for a timed lap in the final phase of qualifying.

“Obvi­ously we were still far away from pole posi­tion – 0.8secs – but in China we were 1.4secs so we made a step for­ward,” said Alonso.

“In the race in Malaysia we were close to the podium, and in China Felipe was close, maybe in Turkey it will be Ferrari’s turn.”

Vitaly Petrov qual­i­fied in sev­enth with team-mate Nick Hei­d­field ninth.

Scot Paul di Resta, who is prepar­ing for his first race in any cat­e­gory at Istan­bul Park, lines up in 13th for Force India.

Kamui Kobayashi was the mid­field run­ner who joined the Team Lotus, His­pania and Vir­gin dri­vers in drop­ping out of the first phase of qualifying.

The Japan­ese dri­ver failed to com­plete a sin­gle lap for Sauber, but will start in 24th after the stew­ards took into con­sid­er­a­tion his times in free practice.

“The engine stopped but we still don’t know the prob­lem,” explained Kobayashi. “It is really bad luck.

“It’ll still be a nice race. Performance-wise we are not too bad.”

Kobayashi did not fall foul of the 107% rule – which pre­vents cars which are 107% slower than the lead­ing time set in the first phase of qual­i­fy­ing from start­ing the race – because he set a suit­able lap time dur­ing practice.

Kovalainen was encour­ag­ingly just half a sec­ond shy of the mid­field pack for Team Lotus, who are plan­ning a big upgrade for the next race in Barcelona.

“We are on the right track and we just have to keep push­ing,” said Kovalainen. “We are nearly there.

“The race pace is even bet­ter so I’ll only be going for­wards on Sun­day instead of backwards.”

Related Posts:

• Hamil­ton Cau­tious Ahead of Turkey
• Web­ber Beats Vet­tel to Spain Pole
• Vet­tel Seals Dra­matic Monaco Win
• Nets GM Billy King Takes Trip to See Locked-Out Deron Williams Play in Turkey
• Vet­tel Takes Cau­tious Approach at F1′s Japan­ese GP

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