That Webber was just a tenth slower than Hamilton on a tyre generally regarded
as being around a second a lap slower than the soft speaks volumes for the
performance of the Red Bull around this circuit so far.
“So far it’s a brilliant weekend. The car was amazing,” Vettel, the only man
to win the Indian Grand Prix since the event came onto the calendar in 2011,
added in the post-qualifying press conference.
“The car’s been very strong since Friday morning. Very strong on both
compounds. It’s a good result for the team with Mark sitting just behind
those [Mercedes] guys.”
Rosberg admitted he was working hard to extract the maximum from his car.
“I’m on a knife-edge. Completely pushing the limits,” he said. “Until now it’s
worked and it seems like we’re a step forward from where we were in recent
races.”
Hamilton added: “It’s been a tough weekend. We’ve been pushing as hard as we
can to get a good result this weekend. I was a little bit surprised to be
where we are. Hopefully tomorrow we can stick together to stay ahead of the
rest.”
Like Webber, Alonso’s eighth place was achieved on the slower medium compound,
so the Spaniard may yet come into play at the head of the pack as Sunday’s
race unfolds.
McLaren duo Sergio Perez and Jenson Button were the only other shoot-out
drivers to run the medium compound and will line up ninth and 10th
respectively.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa will start fifth ahead of Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen, with
the Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg seventh.
Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo missed out on the top-10 shoot-out by a tenth of
a second and will line up alongside Force India’s Paul Di Resta. The
Briton’s team-mate Adrian Sutil will start 13th ahead of the second Toro
Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne.
The Williams of Valtteri Bottas will start 15th, with the Sauber of Esteban
Gutierrez sharing the eighth row.
Lotus’ Romain Grosjean was a surprise casualty in the first section of
qualifying after his team elected to attempt to get through on a medium-tyre
run to preserve their supply of the quicker soft.
The plan backfired, however, and the Frenchman, who stood on the podium in
each of the last two races and had looked to have a quick car this weekend,
missed the cut by four-tenths. Told about the result by his team, Grosjean
simply replied: “No way.”
Grosjean added to reporters: “We just missed the cut-off time, everyone went
quicker than we thought. Today, for some reason, the medium were not quick
enough. It’s a decision we took together, we were confident we could do
enough with them but we got it wrong.”
Williams’ Pastor Maldonado, whose lost wheel nut in practice on Friday cost
his team a £51,000 fine, was another to bow out at the first hurdle, the
Venezuelan qualifying ahead of only the usual gaggle of Marussias and
Caterhams at the back of the pack.
Final Grid Positions after Qualifying:
1 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1min 24.119secs
2 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:24.871
3 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mercedes GP 1:24.941
4 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:25.047
5 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:25.201
6 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus F1 Team 1:25.248
7 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Sauber-Ferrari 1:25.334
8 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:25.826
9 Sergio Perez (Mex) McLaren 1:26.153
10 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 1:26.487
11 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:25.519
12 Paul di Resta (Gbr) Force India 1:25.711
13 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 1:25.740
14 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:25.798
15 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Williams 1:26.134
16 Esteban Gutierrez (Mex) Sauber-Ferrari 1:26.336
17 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Lotus F1 Team 1:26.577
18 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Williams 1:26.842
19 Jules Bianchi (Fra) Marussia 1:26.970
20 Giedo van der Garde (Ned) Caterham 1:27.105
21 Charles Pic (Fra) Caterham 1:27.487
22 Max Chilton (Gbr) Marussia 1:28.138
Edited by Ben Bloom