“Jenson was unlucky,” Whitmarsh added. “He was up [on the required time] until
the yellow flags came out but that’s the pressure of qualifying. You’ve got
to get it right every lap. It’s disappointing but he’s got new option and
new primes left so he’s got lots of choices. He did a fantastic long run
yesterday. We’ll try something different and see where we can get him.”
The frontrunners are likely to be out of Button’s reach, but in what order
they will finish is anyone’s guess. Vettel has looked a shoo-in for victory
all weekend but his thunderous expression upon exiting his car suggested he
was angry at having given his rivals even a hint of encouragement.
The 25 year-old, going for a hat-trick of wins here after his victories in
Singapore and Japan, initially appeared to blame his race engineer Guillaume
Rocquelin for failing to inform him of Felipe Massa’s presence on track as
he set about his final qualifying lap, although the Frenchman was not having
any of it.
“What was I supposed to say?” Rocquelin asked. “He was on a timed lap, a green
time [which indicates fastest personal sectors].”
By the time the press conference started, Vettel was adopting a more
philosophical view.
“Overall I think we can be happy with the result,” said the double world
champion. “We were quite quick in the first part of qualifying, we were
quite quick in the second. The last run – I don’t want to blame it on
Felipe. I thought he was coming in but he wasn’t and I caught him in the
last sector so I had to back off.
“It’s not ideal. Nevertheless, the second lap wasn’t good enough. I lost a
little bit in the middle sector which has seemed to be ok all weekend. I
think second is a good position to start with. There’s a long straight after
the start so it could be interesting tomorrow.”
His team principal Christian Horner said that he hoped it would not be too
interesting.
“We just need to make sure we get through the first couple of corners OK,” he
said, memories of 2010, when Vettel and Webber regularly drove each other to
distraction, no doubt uppermost in his mind.
Elsewhere, it was a better day for Lotus as Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean
took fifth and seventh in their upgraded cars, either side of Massa.
The Mercedes pair of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher qualified ninth and
10th respectively, the Brackley team’s day getting even worse after they
were fined €10,000 for the unsafe release of Schumacher’s car in Q3, forcing
Hamilton to swerve to avoid a collision.
Hamilton survived that incident unscathed, and perhaps he will emerge smiling
from what has been a difficult week, too. Fate appears to be on his side; he
only narrowly squeaked through in Q1 when he was fortunate that Bruno Senna
did not improve on his final lap and eliminate him. But having made it
through to the final top 10 shootout he did as well as he could have hoped.
“In Q3 I’ll happily admit that I ragged the life out of the car and got
everything from it,” Hamilton reflected. “It’s going to be very tough to get
ahead of them [the Red Bulls]. These guys have clearly made a very big step.
We’ve got to keep pushing, we’re not far off. The race pace for Jenson
looked good yesterday, so I hope I am able to do the same tomorrow.”
Leading positions after qualifying:
1 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1min 37.242secs
2 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1:37.316
3 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren 1:37.469
4 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:37.534
5 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus F1 Team 1:37.625
6 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:37.884
7 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Lotus F1 Team 1:37.934
8 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Force India 1:38.266
9 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:38.361
10 Michael Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:38.513
11 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 1:38.441
12 Sergio Perez (Mex) Sauber-Ferrari 1:38.460
13 Kamui Kobayashi (Jpn) Sauber-Ferrari 1:38.594
14 Paul di Resta (Gbr) Force India 1:38.643
15 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Williams 1:38.725
16 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:39.084
17 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:39.340
18 Bruno Senna (Bra) Williams 1:39.443
19 Vitaly Petrov (Rus) Caterham 1:40.207
20 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Caterham 1:40.333
21 Charles Pic (Fra) Marussia 1:41.317
22 Timo Glock (Ger) Marussia 1:41.371
23 Pedro de la Rosa (Spa) HRT-F1 1:42.881
24 Narain Karthikeyan (Ind) HRT-F1 No Time
Note: Charles Pic will start from the back of the grid after
receiving a 10-place penalty for exceeding the number of engines allowed
during the season