NEW DELHI – Sebastian Vettel continued his domination of qualifying sessions this year by scoring his 13th pole position of the season at the inaugural Indian Grand Prix outside New Delhi on Saturday. Vettel joins Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna in the record books with the second largest number of pole positions in a season. Nigel Mansell holds the record of 14 pole positions, which he achieved in 1992 at Williams. With two races left in the season, Vettel has a chance to beat the record.
When told he had equaled the number of pole positions scored by Juan Manuel Fangio in his career, Vettel, like Michael Schumacher before him, said he did not really look at statistics, that they did not really motivate him.
“It’s definitely special,” Vettel said. “I think the difference from Fangio’s time is quite different compared to today. He had less races in one season. With all the names of Formula One in the past, and what they achieved, I’m not an expert. It’s special to be part of a sport that has so much history, it allows you to compare yourself. And looking back 20 years it was probably the same and will be in 20 years from now. But I don’t think about that, you have to focus on what you do. I am still motivated without knowing too many numbers or statistics.”
Lewis Hamilton was second fastest in his McLaren Mercedes, but he will be bumped back to fifth position after failing to heed yellow flags during the a practice session on Friday. Mark Webber was third fastest, but will move up to the front row after Hamilton’s demotion.
Most the drivers praised the track as interesting, exciting and challenging. But Felipe Massa had a frightening moment at the end of qualifying when he broke the front right suspension of his Ferrari by cutting a corner and finding the curb a little too high.
Vettel said there was nothing particularly troubling about it, as it was the first time such an incident had happened, but that the drivers would simply have to try to avoiding cutting the curbs too much.
The race starts at 3 PM local time in India tomorrow.