Sebastian Vettel achieved his twenty-second career pole position – his seventh from eight Grands Prix – with an impressive lap around the Valencia street circuit.
The world championship leader’s time of one minute, 36.975 seconds is the fastest ever lap and his margin over his team-mate Mark Webber was 0.188 seconds. And yet significantly four tenths of a second clear of McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton.
Despite a change to the engine mapping settings enforced by the sport’s governing body, the sheer raw speed from the RB7 resulted in Red Bull Racing taking yet another front row grid position.
Lewis Hamilton will start third for McLaren, ahead of the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, while Montreal winner Jenson Button will start the European Grand Prix in sixth.
As for Mercedes, the team chose to only make a single Q3 run for both drivers. The end result is Nico Rosberg out-qualifying his team-mate Michael Schumacher by a margin of 0.009 seconds. The Silver Arrows will line up on row four.
Nick Heidfeld is ninth for Renault with Adrian Sutil completing the top ten for Force India. Both elated not to take part in Q3 in order to save tyres for the race.
Sutil’s last-minute progress into the top ten shootout came at the expense of Renault’s Vitaly Petrov, which was the only real upset in this three-part qualifying session.
Paul di Resta joined the Russian on row six in the second Force India, ahead of Rubens Barrichello’s Williams and Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber.
A brief red flag period interrupted Q2 when Pastor Maldonado spun his Williams to a halt in the middle of the track. But the Formula One rookie had already done a time good enough to secure P15 on the grid ahead of Sergio Perez and Sebastien Buemi.
Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari will start in P18, ahead of the Lotus duo of Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli. The latter tried in vain to go faster than his team-mate but spun on his final Q1 run.
All the drivers comfortably made the 107 per cent qualifying cut, with the Hispania of Tonio Liuzzi splitting the Virgin Racing as he edged ahead of Jerome D’Ambrosio.
Qualifying times from Valencia:
1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m36.975s
2. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m37.163s
3. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m37.380s
4. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m37.454s
5. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m37.535s
6. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m37.645s
7. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m38.231s
8. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m38.240s
9. Nick Heidfeld Renault No time
10. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes No time
11. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1m39.068s
12. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m39.422s
13. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m39.489s
14. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m39.525s
15. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1m39.645s
16. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m39.657s
17. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m39.711s
18. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m40.232s
19. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1m41.664s
20. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1m42.234s
21. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m42.553s
22. Tonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 1m43.584s
23. Jerome D’Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1m43.735s
24. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1m44.363s
107 per cent time: 1m45.301s
Even with the new rule changes enforced by the sport’s governing body, Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel took his seventh pole position of the season at Valencia. Autosport.com has the story.
Sebastian Vettel insisted there was too much talk about how the rule changes would affect Red Bull’s performance, after the team dominated yet another qualifying session.
Vettel secured his seventh pole in eight races as his team continued with its perfect record of top spots in qualifying this year.
That despite the FIA now not allowing teams to change their engine mappings between qualifying and the race.
“There has been a lot of talk but for us we never really understood why,” said Vettel.
“We had to focus on what we have to do here, and that is it. We had a good qualifying session, generally a good build-up throughout the weekend, picking up steadily some pace and I felt more and more comfortable in the car, that was most important.
“It was nice today to sit here and have the front row for us, it is a good start for tomorrow, but it is a long race so we have to go from there.”
The world champion believes there will be even more talk when the ban on off-throttle diffusers is introduced at the British Grand Prix, but he doesn’t believe it will affect Red Bull more than others.
“A lot of talk and we will have same sort of talk before the Silverstone GP again. We know what we do, surely it is a step back but it is the same for all of us, for some more and some less. For the car based on that concept, cars like Mercedes or Renault, they will I think feel it more than others.”
The German also denied he was unemotional about scoring yet another pole position.
“I think that is wrong. It was a little bit odd because I stopped the lap early, came in and had to focus I do everything right and stop the car, I was waiting for the call and I had to switch off the car, so I didn’t have a lot of time. I just had congratulations to them.
“It depends a little bit the moment, if you are cruising circuit and have time to talk you give a bit more room to celebrate. I knew in the second run that obviously I was a little bit quicker but not much, I wanted to save lap on tyres, came in and I didn’t know, Mark improved and so on, but I was already stopped on parc ferme and didn’t know.”
Team-mate Mark Webber, second today, also made it clear he was never expecting the team’s performance to be affected.
“We have said it enough, we came here and didn’t expect any difference. You guys wrote a lot, some others spoke a lot, maybe some in our team, who technically were not on top of things.”
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton will start the European Grand Prix in third position behind the Red Bulls. And yet the 2008 world champion believes he has a chance for victory. Autosport.com has the details.
Lewis Hamilton is optimistic that he will still have a chance to challenge the Red Bulls for victory in tomorrow’s European Grand Prix despite Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber sweeping the front row, and Valencia having a reputation as a track where passing is difficult.
The McLaren driver was 0.4 seconds off polesitter Vettel’s pace as he qualified third today, but hopes that he can move forward if the race is as eventful as many 2011 grands prix have been.
Asked if he felt he could race with Red Bull, Hamilton replied: “That is always the question, but we are as close as we could be. This is a track notorious for being difficult to overtake on.
“We will see what happens, there will be more pitstops here than we have had in the past. We have seen how other races unfolded [in 2011] so we could still have an exciting race.”
Hamilton added that he was pleasantly surprised to get as high as third, having struggled to get this weekend’s Pirelli tyres working for him so far this weekend.
“I wasn’t expecting to be so high up,” he said. “After practice three we were struggling a little bit to switch the tyres on.
“The guys did a great job to analyse the data into qualifying. My lap wasn’t too bad, I tried to improve on last lap – always trying to get a bit more – but I got a bit greedy, and bailed out on last lap to try and save tyres for the race.”
Michael Schumacher believes it would be too optimistic to expect his Mercedes team to be able to fight with the cars in front after a discreet qualifying showing in Valencia.
The seven-time champion will start the European GP from eighth position, a result the German admitted was average.
Schumacher said, however, that he was not expecting anything else this weekend, and is keeping his expectations in check for the race too.
“I am OK with today’s qualifying result which I would say was an average one,” said Schumacher. “I might have improved by one place but in the penultimate slow corner, I attacked a bit too early, got oversteer and had to lift for a moment which cost me the place to Nico.
“But all in all, we came in where we had expected to finish. It would be optimistic in my view to expect that we can attack the cars in front of us tomorrow because I think our starting positions realistically reflect where we stand at the moment. So let’s see how the race develops and what we can make out of it tomorrow.”
Team-mate Nico Rosberg was said he was satifised with his seventh place on the grid, the German having managed to save a set of soft tyres for the race.
“Yesterday was very busy with a lot of set-up changes but the team and I did a decent job today to improve the car, so I’m quite pleased,” he said. “It is difficult out on track this weekend and we have to be careful of overheating the rear tyres – that will certainly be something to watch out for tomorrow.
“I was able to save one set of soft tyres, by running used options in Q2, and this can be important in the race as we aim to score some nice points. I’m looking forward to it.”
Source: Autosport.com
Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi has said he is feeling very confident in terms of racing in the European Grand Prix despite missing out in Q3. Autosport.com has the story.
Kamui Kobayashi says he is ‘very confident’ for the European Grand Prix despite failing to qualify in the top ten on Saturday.
The Sauber driver will start from 14th position after struggling with tyre warm-up issues during the grid-deciding session.
Despite the problems, the Japanese is bullish about his chances of scoring tomorrow, as he is adamant his car is a lot better in race trim.
“It is quite tricky. Generally our car improved and, again, I am very confident for the race,” said Kobayashi. “We have shown we are much better in race conditions.
“Again I had warm-up issues with the tyres, and once I find some grip the front tyres overheat. For the future we will try to find a solution for this, but for tomorrow I will be aiming for points as in the previous races.”
Sergio Perez admitted he expected to be quicker thanks to the higher temperatures, but the rookie had to settle for a disappointing 16th position.
“Because the track temperatures were going up I expected to be a few tenths quicker, but it turned out not to be that easy,” he said.
“We did more laps in order to get the tyres to work, but this also has disadvantages. However, I think tomorrow it will be possible to get some points and this is my target.”
Renault’s Nick Heidfeld elated not to run in Q3 to save a set of Pirellis for the race and the German has said this was the right decision. Autosport.com provides the details.
Nick Heidfeld believes his Renault team made the right decision in saving tyres for tomorrow’s European Grand Prix.
The German driver did not set a time in the final qualifying segment in order to save soft tyres for the race, a tactic used often by teams this year.
Heidfeld will start from ninth position.
“When I went out in Q3, we saw that Sutil was not going to do a lap time so we quite rightly came back in because the cars ahead had posted times that were considerably quicker,” said Heidfeld.
“Of course, when you’re in the car and you are called back, you want to stay out and have a go! But, it was the right decision because we’ve saved tyres. We were targeting higher than P9 and P11 but realistically, on today’s pace, that’s where we were so we will now look forward to a strong race tomorrow.”
Team-mate Vitaly Petrov qualified in 11th, the Russian admitting there was not more pace to extract from his car today.
“The gap between me and P10 was very close, but that’s racing – sometimes other cars are faster than you and tomorrow is another day,” he said. “We didn’t have any particular problems, just not quite enough speed so we will try our hardest in the race tomorrow.
“It’s a long race and it won’t be an easy one in this heat. We will analyse the data and hope we perform better on fresh tyres. I’m sure there will be a lot of overtaking and much will depend on who can look after the rear tyres the best.
“Here, the degradation is not as bad as we have seen and we will not see a race like Barcelona so I’m confident we can take a good stride forwards and get a good result.”
Paul di Resta says he is satisfied with his recovery in qualifying after losing nearly all of his practice time on Friday when Force India’s test driver Nico Hulkenberg crashed his car.
The Scot will start 12th on the grid for the European Grand Prix, two places behind his team-mate Adrian Sutil, and di Resta said afterwards that he might have gone even quicker but for a mistake on his final flying lap in Q2.
“After the problems we had in free practice, I knew that I would be on the back foot today having only completed three timed laps yesterday,” said di Resta. “But we tried our best this morning to get up to speed with the car before qualifying.
“On my final flying lap in Q2 I was on the edge and simply made a small mistake at turn 17 – I missed a downshift and ran wide. That meant I lost the advantage I’d made at the start of the lap. So I will start from P12, which is not too bad considering all that has happened this weekend.
“I’m staying positive and think that we can fight for points from there. The only unknowns are that I haven’t done a long run on high fuel and it’s difficult to know where to start with the aero balance or when to conserve the tyres. So we will try and make the most of what we know.”
Sutil was delighted to have made it in to Q3 for the first time in 2011.
“The car has been working pretty well all weekend and I felt that we had a good chance to make it through to Q3 today,” said the German. “But I knew that we would have to get the lap just right. That’s why this result feels great because I got the maximum from the car. We didn’t go out in Q3 because we felt it was better to save another set of soft tyres for the race.
“Also, we saw in Q2 that Heidfeld was three tenths away and that it would be difficult to improve on P10. So it’s a good grid position, but the race is what counts so hopefully we can convert this into points tomorrow.”
Source: Autosport.com
After setting some impressive lap times during pre-season testing, Ferrari have yet to challenge Red Bull Racing and McLaren for race victories. Fernando Alonso believes the Scuderia will catch its rivals some time this year. Autosport.com has the story.
Fernando Alonso is convinced his Ferrari team will catch the leading teams this year after another solid performance in qualifying for the European Grand Prix.
The Spanish driver, who was fighting for victory in the previous two races in Monaco and Canada, will start tomorrow’s race from fourth place.
Alonso said he was not disappointed with the result, as he is aware of the strength of Red Bull and McLaren.
And the Ferrari driver is encouraged by the progress made by his team, which he believes will be able to get closer to its rivals soon.
“I don’t think this was a disappointing qualifying, because even if there were those outside the team who built up expectations, within it, we were well aware of the situation,” said Alonso.
“The aim was to fight with the McLarens and we did just that. Maybe we had hoped to be ahead of both, but instead we find ourselves splitting the two drivers.
“I reckon that tomorrow we could see different strategies in terms of pitstops. Our aim is to finish on the podium and we are in with a chance.
“The development work on the car is progressing well, but we are a long way behind in terms of aerodynamics, which to put a time value on it means two or three months. It will not be easy to catch up but we will do all we can to succeed.”
Alonso also claimed it was no surprise to see Sebastian Vettel on pole again despite the rule changes introduced this weekend.
“I did not expect that the very slight change introduced to the rules would change the order of things and that was the case: Red Bull was and still is the favourite.
“We will see if at Silverstone, where there are more significant changes coming, something will happen, but we need to keep in mind that everyone or almost everyone will suffer a drop in performance.”
Team-mate Felipe Massa qualified in fifth position after a tough qualifying, but the Brazilian was also pleased with the development rate of his team.
“It wasn’t an easy qualifying, even if fourth and fifth places is definitely not a bad result,” he said. “Maybe the others, especially McLaren, managed to find a little something extra between practice and qualifying, while Red Bull continues to be very strong, as was predictable.
“We have become more competitive over the past three races and our aim is to keep going down this path. We must push on the development of the car, especially as next year’s regulations will be more or less the same, therefore any work we do now could be helpful in the long term too.”
Ferrari technical chief Pat Fry says his biggest aim is to make the team more ‘creative’ in its design thinking to help lift its form against rivals.
Having replaced Aldo Costa following a staffing reshuffle last month, Fry has been evaluating the way Ferrari works in its push to close the gap on Red Bull Racing.
Fry said on Saturday that there will be changes to the way Ferrari’s wind tunnel programme was utilised from next week, but he believes that there was the necessary brain power already at the outfit to help it achieve its aims.
“We are looking at trying to change the way we work,” said Fry. “There are a lot of very clever people at Ferrari. We are just trying to give them space to try and come up with ideas and be more creative, I don’t think there will be any [staff] changes.”
When asked by AUTOSPORT about what changes he had made since taking on his role, Fry said: “The main focus in the last three or four weeks is that we made some changes in April, and we continued with those.
“We are trying to look at the way we run the wind tunnel, and we are trying to change that and that will be happening in the next week or so. Plus the way we use simulation tools to work out exactly what is better. We are trying to build a foundation to make those decisions.”
Although Ferrari has hopes that the blown diffuser regulation tweaks for Silverstone may transform its chances of winning the title, Fry says it is hard to predict exactly what will happen at the British GP.
“I think it is going to be very hard to say what is going to happen until we get there,” he said. “The engine mapping changes here are relatively small compared to the changes for Silverstone, but it really just comes down to how much people have been using it.
“Everyone has been exploiting the blown diffusers, but to what level I really don’t know, it will be interesting.”
He added: “I hope we will catch them up, but whether it is a landmark race or not I don’t know.”
Source: Autosport.com
Following criticisms over his aggressive driving style at Monaco and Montreal, Lewis Hamilton has said he will think twice when overtaking. Autosport.com has the details.
Lewis Hamilton says he will “think twice” before trying to overtake in tomorrow’s European Grand Prix, despite vowing not to be less aggressive.
The McLaren driver has been involved in incidents with other drivers in the last two races in Monaco and Canada, crashing with team-mate Jenson Button during the Montreal race.
Speaking after qualifying in Valencia on Saturday, Hamilton said he is not planning to be less aggressive, but he did admit he may think more carefully before trying to pass.
“I’d like to say no,” said Hamilton when asked if he would be more cautious tomorrow. “I don’t think I will, if the chance comes. Of course, I want to finish for the team, that’s the key. I think I will always remain as aggressive as I am.
“But instead of thinking once about it, maybe you’ll perhaps think twice. If that means you are more cautious, then so be it but when I get the opportunity I am going to attack and try to overtake.”
The Briton, known as a good overtaking driver, said there was nothing he could put his finger on for the amount of accidents recently.
“Not really,” he said. “Things happen for certain reasons and of course you look at them and you analyse where you made the right decision or if you didn’t.
“But that’s just the way life is. It happened in those two races and hopefully it won’t happen again. I don’t know why the previous overtaking manoeuvres were much cleaner and much easier. Maybe the drivers are putting up even more of a fight than they have in the past.”
McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh said he had no objections to Hamilton’s style.
“I have no problem with how Lewis is racing,” he said. “He is a natural, aggressive, born racer and he’s going to go out there and race. I wouldn’t want him to do it any other way.
“He will learn from it. I don’t think he needs teaching from me because he is a professional racing driver.”
On the engine mapping rule change. Is it fair to change the rule mid-way through a season just because one team is dominant? It’s like making all Argentinians under 5ft 8 hop on one leg in football matches just because you think Messi has too much influence on the outcome…
Janus
Well it’s the sport’s governing body way of preventing Red Bull Racing from winning everything, in qualifying and in the race. Both Ferrari and McLaren need to step up in performance in order to stop the domination of Sebastian Vettel and the flying Red Bull.
Midway through the season though? Surely the FIA’s job is to lay down a set of rules for the teams to follow; not to actually influence the fairness of the competition? And on that subject, what about the gross spending power of the big teams in comparison to the small teams? If the FIA thinks it is ok to change the technical rules in the name of competition then why not the financial rules? Or do they not think they could get away with that?
Janus