Vettel Takes His 11th Pole of the Year

Can Vettel take the championship in Singapore?

Sebastian Vettel took one big step towards becoming the youngest double world champion, by claiming yet another emphatic pole position.

Vettel did it with his first timed lap of the top-ten shootout, with his teammate Mark Webber for company on the front row of the grid. The German went out for a second try, but a mistake on the turn 10 chicane caused him to abort the lap. Vettel now has 11 pole positions, this season, and has Nigel Mansell’s record of 14 within his sights.

After the chequered flag fell Webber and Jenson Button put in faster laps, but neither could close the gap to Vettel. Button, who had been second for the previous session, managed to jump his teammate, but stayed just under a tenth behind the Aussie. Lewis Hamilton had a tough qualifying session, but managed to qualify in fourth. The 2008 champion suffered a puncture in the second session; which lead to some tense moments, as McLaren waited to see if they’d made it to the top-ten. After putting in one flying lap, the British team decided to conserve a set of tyres and stayed in the garage while his main rivals had another shot.

Two other drivers who stayed in the garage were Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta. Force India decided not to contest the final qualifying session at all and kept both cars in the pits, to save a set of tyres. Michael Schumacher sits ahead of them on the grid, due to his faster laps in previous sessions, but he too stayed in the garage. His teammate Nico Rosberg sits in front of him, while Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa are ahead respectively.

Further back Bruno Senna continued to give Renault reasons to smile, by beating Vitaly Petrov in to Q2. The Brazilian has his first run in the second session disrupted, when Kamui Kobayashi hit the wall and stopped the session. Kobayashi ran over the curbs on the turn 10 chicane, which lifted the car off the ground before shunting him in to the wall. All the cars finished within the 107%, with last man through, Vitantonio Liuzzi, beating it by one second.

Posted by Sadhbh O'Shea - Follow her on twitter @SadhbhOS.

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Last Comment Posted »

• Thanks. I would say probably 50/50 even last year he had a few pole positions with one lap. He just seems to know exactly where to put the car. Doubt...
  by Sadhbh
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