Sebastian Vettel fended off the challenge from Lewis Hamilton to take his fourth victory of the season in the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Red Bull Racing driver was under immense pressure from his racing rival following a final pit-stop to the harder ‘Prime’ tyres and it was fascinating to see the world champion battling against the determined McLaren driver.

Jenson Button adopted a three-stop strategy to take third, while Mark Webber – who started the race in pole position – ended up back in fourth. Home crowd favourite Fernando Alonso slumped down to a lapped fifth after gloriously leading the first two stints of the race.

Webber’s pole advantage only lasted a few yards as Vettel was immediately all over him off the grid. As the Red Bulls battled, the fast-starting Alonso picked up the slipstream on both and dive down the inside into Turn 1 and sending the crowd ecstatic by taking the lead of his home race.

Alonso remained in the lead for the first two stints of the race although Vettel, Webber and Hamilton were close behind the Ferrari.

As for the activation zone for the Drag Reduction System at the Circuit de Catalunya – which is situated on the main pit straight – it wasn’t proving as dramatically effective compared to Turkey and that allow Alonso to escape from the chasing pack.

Vettel tried to jump ahead of his rivals by pitting one lap sooner for his first tyre change – but he emerged into traffic. Despite diving past Jenson Button – who had fallen to tenth with a slow start – Massa and Rosberg in the space of one dynamic out-lap, the world championship leader still found himself back behind Alonso when the Ferrari rejoined.

But at the second stops on laps 17 and 18, Red Bull Racing’s strategy worked out perfectly, and an extra lap on new fresh tyres was sufficient to give Vettel a clear lead.

While Webber pitted at the same moment as Alonso and stayed behind the Ferrari, McLaren tried a different tactic and kept Hamilton out until lap 22, which promoted him past Alonso and Webber from fourth to second position.

Vettel and Hamilton then pulled away in unison, as Alonso dropped ever further behind with Webber close behind. Button then passed the Ferrari and Red Bull in quick succession mid-race as Jenson’s three-stop strategy meant it was on softer ‘Option’ tyres while Alonso and Webber were grappling with the harder ‘Prime’.

Webber finally got past Alonso at the final pit-stop, when the Red Bull stayed out a full eight laps longer and had no trouble getting ahead of the fading Ferrari, which began to lap three seconds off the pace late on as it struggled badly with the Prime tyres and was eventually lapped by the leaders.

While Webber proved unable to catch Button for third, Hamilton got ever closer to Vettel in the closing laps. The Red Bull’s radio transmission suggesting that again the Sebastian’s KERS was only working intermittently.

It built-up to a thrilling finale as Hamilton was edging closer to race leader Vettel and with the use of KERS and DRS, the McLaren driver had an opportunity to pass and win the race. But unlike China with the late position change, Vettel resisted the pressure by making sure he made no mistakes and he took the chequered flag by a margin of six tenths of a second.

Among the lapped cars, Mercedes team-mates Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg had a tough race-long duel for sixth position, with the former staying ahead.

Nick Heidfeld was all over the back of the Silver Arrows at the end, making excellent use of a clever strategy and fresh Pirellis to fly through from the back of the grid in the Renault.

The Saubers completed the top ten with Sergio Perez taking his first points finish, while team-mate Kamui Kobayashi doing well to recover from a first-lap puncture.

Felipe Massa struggled throughout the Grand Prix, and after a mid-race spin, the Brazilian finally dumped his Ferrari in the gravel with six laps to go with a loss of gears.

Paul di Resta got as high as fifth with a very strong opening stint on hard tyres, but did not have the pace later on to turn that into points, ending up P12, behind Vitaly Petrov.

Team Lotus showed its best race pace yet and had both cars in the top ten for a while thanks to long opening stints on the ‘Option’ tyres, but later faded, with Jarno Trulli only P18 and Heikki Kovalainen crashing out at Turn 4.

As for Williams, this was a difficult race for both Pastor Maldonado and Rubens Barrichello. The former lacked pace and slumped down to P15 while the latter charge from the back never materialised. It certainly didn’t help by a slow pit-stop, which resulted in only P17.

So yet another victory for the reigning world champion with four wins from five Grands Prix. This is an impressive achievement and it will be fascinating to see if anyone can catch Sebastian Vettel. Next stop is the glamorous Monaco Grand Prix in seven days time.

Spanish Grand Prix results, 66 laps:

1.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           1h39:03.301
2.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +0.630
3.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +35.697
4.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +47.966
5.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +1 lap
6.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +1 lap
7.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +1 lap
8.  Heidfeld      Renault                    +1 lap
9.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari             +1 lap
10.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +1 lap
11.  Petrov        Renault                    +1 lap
12.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +1 lap
13.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +1 lap
14.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +1 lap
15.  Maldonado     Williams-Cosworth          +1 lap
16.  Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +2 laps
17.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth          +2 laps
18.  Trulli        Lotus-Renault              +2 laps
19.  Glock         Virgin-Cosworth            +3 laps
20.  D’Ambrosio    Virgin-Cosworth            +3 laps
21.  Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth               +4 laps

Fastest lap: Alonso, 1:26.727

Not classified/retirements:

Massa         Ferrari                      60 laps
Kovalainen    Lotus-Renault                49 laps
Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth                 29 laps

World Championship standings, round 5:

Drivers:
1.  Vettel       118
2.  Hamilton      77
3.  Webber        67
4.  Button        61
5.  Alonso        51
6.  Rosberg       26
7.  Heidfeld      25
8.  Massa         24
9.  Petrov        21
10.  Schumacher    14
11.  Kobayashi      9
12.  Buemi          6
13.  Sutil          2
14.  Di Resta       2
15.  Perez          2

Constructors:
1.  Red Bull-Renault          185
2.  McLaren-Mercedes          138
3.  Ferrari                    75
4.  Renault                    46
5.  Mercedes                   40
6.  Sauber-Ferrari             11
7.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari          6
8.  Force India-Mercedes        4

Next race: Monaco Grand Prix, Monte Carlo. May 24-29.

Red Bull Racing maintain their outstanding qualifying performance this season with yet another pole position but this time it was Mark Webber who took the all-important grid slot at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The speed advantage from the Red Bulls reveal how great this Adrian Newey designed RB7 handles around the 2.875-mile race track. The level of grip and downforce seems unreal with Sebastian Vettel even using his Drag Reduction System mid-corner to gain extra straight-line speed.

By taking pole position with just a single flying lap in Q3, Mark Webber has the upper hand in saving a set of fresh soft ‘Option’ tyre for the race.

Both chose to make just one Q3 run, with Vettel – who had been suffering an apparent KERS issue earlier in qualifying – setting a lap time of one minute, 21.181 seconds before Webber beat it with his lap of one minute, 20.981 seconds. Under no threat from the others, the drivers sat out the remaining five minutes of the session.

Lewis Hamilton will start in third for McLaren, but the margin between himself to the pole sitter is 0.980 seconds. Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was delighted to qualify in fourth – his best effort this season – in front of his home fans and ahead of Jenson Button. As for Felipe Massa, he will start in eighth position, nearly a second off from his Scuderia team-mate.

Vitaly Petrov was an impressive sixth for Renault, just ahead of Nico Rosberg, whose Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher chose not to go for a lap time in Q3.

Pastor Maldonado showed his strongest form in his debut season in Formula One by making it to Q3 for the first time – and only the second time for Williams this season – and was just off Massa’s pace in ninth.

The Toro Rossos and Saubers will share rows six and seven, but the most significant result of Q2 was that Heikki Kovalainen got Team Lotus into the second part of qualifying for only the second time in the team’s history. The Finn then went on to beat the Force Indias to P15, though the latter team had played it conservatively and opted to only use the harder ‘Prime’ tyres in Q2, saving the softer Pirelli compounds for the race.

Kovalainen’s progress was not just due to Team Lotus having made a step forward this weekend, for two big names dropped out in Q1. A gearbox problem stranded Rubens Barrichello’s Williams to P19 while Nick Heidfeld’s fire-damaged Renault – caused by a damaged exhaust – could not be repaired in time for qualifying.

Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix is going to be fascinating. Not only to see the intra-team battle between the Red Bull drivers but also if the new 2011 rules will allow cars to overtake one another on this notorious difficult race track.

Qualifying times from Circuit de Catalunya:

1.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m20.981s
2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m21.181s
3.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m21.961s
4.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m21.964s
5.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m21.996s
6.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              1m22.471s
7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m22.599s
8.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m22.888s
9.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m22.952s
10.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes            No time
11.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m23.231s
12.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m23.367s
13.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m23.694s
14.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m23.702s
15.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault        1m25.403s
16.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m26.126s
17.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes 1m26.571s
18.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault        1m26.521s
19.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m26.910s
20.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth      1m27.315s
21.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth         1m27.809s
22.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m27.908s
23.  Jerome D’Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth      1m28.556s
24.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault              No time

107% time: 1m28.767s

Sebastian Vettel scored his thirteenth career Grand Prix victory with a supreme performance at the Istanbul Park circuit, leading home a Red Bull Racing one-two.

Mark Webber gained the advantage over Fernando Alonso to take the runner-up position following a tough battle, although Alonso achieved Ferrari’s best result with a podium following a difficult start this season.

The Mercedes-powered cars featuring Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button were left to fight for the remaining top six positions, producing some spectacular racing as Hamilton came through to fourth ahead of Rosberg and Button.

Vettel got a clean break immediately as the five red lights went out, as Webber was jumped by Rosberg’s Mercedes off the line. Hamilton tried to get around the outside of the Red Bull too at Turn 3, but ran wide and fell to sixth behind Alonso and Button.

It only took Webber five laps to cruise past Rosberg on the back straight using his Drag Reduction System, but by that time Vettel was 4.4 seconds clear and had enough speed to edge slightly further away even after that.

Alonso was past Rosberg as well two laps later, as the Mercedes found itself falling victim to a string of DRS passes in the opening stint. Webber could not shake the Ferrari off, and just after half-distance, Alonso used the moveable rear wing to go around the outside of Webber into the final complex to claim second position.

He then pulled away for a while, but after their fourth and final pit-stops, Webber was able to take a new set of the harder Prime tyres into the closing laps whereas Alonso’s rubber was more used. With seven laps to go, Webber repeated Alonso’s earlier DRS move to reclaim second, and though the Spaniard tried his utmost to re-pass on the outside both at Turn 1 and Turn 3, Red Bull Racing’s first one-two of the year was secure – though so was Scuderia Ferrari’s first podium.

Vettel was able to run much further on his Pirellis than his nearest rivals and looked like he might manage the full race distance on a three-stop strategy rather than more popular four. But in the end the world championship leader played it safe and adopted his peers’ strategy, maintaining an eight seconds cushion over Webber until they backed off on the final lap.

The most spectacular racing involved the McLarens, Mercedes, Felipe Massa and the Renaults. Button was the highest placed three-stopper, a strategy that allowed him to briefly lead and run fourth going into the final laps.

But Hamilton – recovering well after a delay at his second pit-stop with a cross thread front-right – and Rosberg were able to hunt down and pass Button using their fresher Pirellis late on, taking them to fourth and fifth as the 2009 world champion had to settle for sixth.

Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi drove a superb race to come through from P16 on the grid to seventh on the same strategy as Button, but he too found it impossible to fend off the four-stoppers at the end, and fell down to ninth position behind the Renaults of Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov.

Kamui Kobayashi made a three-stop strategy work well to surge from P23 on the grid to tenth, while Massa was unable to score a point for Ferrari. The Brazilian lost crucial ground when he ran very wide at Turn 8 after his third pit-stop and fell deep into a group of yet-to-stop midfielders, and then was further delayed with a right-rear wheel issue at his last pit-stop.

The Ferrari got back up to P11 with an out-braking move on Michael Schumacher, who had earlier damaged his front wing when he turned in on Petrov as the Renault passed him into the final complex.

Paul di Resta was the only driver to drop out during the 58-lap race with an unspecified car problem, while Timo Glock didn’t make the start with a gearbox problem.

So a fantastic result for Sebastian Vettel. That crash in the opening practice session seemed not to unsettle the world champion as he achieved a superb pole position and race victory for Red Bull Racing. A complete contrast to last year’s nightmare scenario at the same venue.

The resurgent Alonso showed the team can still be caught. But they’ll need to do it soon before Vettel runs away with the championship.

Turkish Grand Prix, 58 laps:

1.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           1h30:17.558
2.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +8.807
3.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +10.075
4.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +40.232
5.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +47.539
6.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +59.431
7.  Heidfeld      Renault                    +1:00.857
8.  Petrov        Renault                    +1:08.168
9.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +1:09.300
10.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +1:18.000
11.  Massa         Ferrari                    +1:19.800
12.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +1:25.400
13.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +1 lap
14.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari             +1 lap
15.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth          +1 lap
16.  Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +1 lap
17.  Maldonado     Williams-Cosworth          +1 lap
18.  Trulli        Lotus-Renault              +1 lap
19.  Kovalainen    Lotus-Renault              +2 laps
20.  D’Ambrosio    Virgin-Cosworth            +2 laps
21.  Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth               +3 laps
22.  Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth               +5 laps

Fastest lap: Webber, 1:29.703

Not classified/retirements:

Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes         45 laps
Glock         Virgin-Cosworth              1 lap

World Championship standings, round 4:

Drivers:
1.  Vettel        93
2.  Hamilton      59
3.  Webber        55
4.  Button        46
5.  Alonso        41
6.  Massa         24
7.  Petrov        21
8.  Heidfeld      21
9.  Rosberg       20
10.  Kobayashi      8
11.  Buemi          6
12.  Schumacher     6
13.  Sutil          2
14.  Di Resta       2

Constructors:
1.  Red Bull-Renault          148
2.  McLaren-Mercedes          105
3.  Ferrari                    65
4.  Renault                    42
5.  Mercedes                   26
6.  Sauber-Ferrari              8
7.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari          6
8.  Force India-Mercedes        4

Next race: Spanish Grand Prix, Barcelona. May 20-22.

Sebastian Vettel maintains his perfect record in qualifying this season with his fourth successive pole position at the Istanbul Park circuit.

Despite crashing his Red Bull RB7 against the barrier in Friday’s wet practice session after running over a kerb exiting the challenging Turn 8, the world championship leader recovered from a lack of dry running to take a dominant pole position with just a single flying lap.

Vettel’s time of one minute, 25.049 seconds was impressive. Full commitment around the demanding 3.317-mile circuit, with just a small hint of lift off the throttle in Turn 8 and the use of KERS to power through to the top slot.

His team-mate Mark Webber completed an all-Red Bull Racing front row, four tenths of a second slower than Vettel, with the team so confident of its superiority that the pair went for just one early run in Q3 then sat in the pits watching their rivals fail to beat them.

Nico Rosberg underlined Mercedes GP’s improvement by taking an excellent third, but disappointment for team-mate Michael Schumacher, as he could not maintain his practice form and was only eighth.

The McLaren pair of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button will start in fourth and sixth respectively, split by Fernando Alonso. The Ferrari driver continuing to take fifth in every qualifying session this season.

Renault’s Vitaly Petrov lines up seventh on the grid, two positions ahead of team-mate Nick Heidfeld. As for Felipe Massa, a three times winner of the Turkish Grand Prix, he will start in tenth after deciding not to run in Q3 following an engine change in final practice.

Rubens Barrichello gave Williams its best qualifying position in a difficult season so far with P11 – although he had been on course for a Q3 slot until Heidfeld edged ahead by 0.024 seconds in the final moments of Q2. Team-mate Pastor Maldonado was P14, with the Force Indias between them. Adrian Sutil out-qualifying Paul di Resta for the first time this season.

Kamui Kobayashi was the only driver unable to record a lap time, as his Sauber was cutting out on the back straight. He was forced to withdraw from Q1 with a fuel pump problem. His team-mate Sergio Perez took P15 ahead of the Toro Rossos.

Team Lotus was unable to progress into Q2. But despite that setback Heikki Kovalainen was within a respectable half-second of the cut off point and still managed to edge ahead of his team-mate Jarno Trulli by 0.9 seconds.

As for the battle at the rear end of the grid, Tonio Liuzzi impressively qualified his Hispania in-between the pair of Virgin Racing. For Jerome D’Ambrosio, who recorded a time to qualify in P20, he will drop further back serving his five-place grid penalty for a yellow flag infringement in practice.

Qualifying positions from Istanbul:

1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m25.049s
2.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m25.454s
3.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m25.574s
4.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m25.595s
5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m25.851s
6.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m25.982s
7.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              1m26.296s
8.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m26.646s
9.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault              1m26.659s
10.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              No time
11.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m26.764s
12.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes 1m27.027s
13.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m27.145s
14.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m27.236s
15.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m27.244s
16.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m27.255s
17.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m27.572s
18.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault        1m28.780s
19.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault        1m31.119s
20.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth         1m30.692s
21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth      1m30.813s
22.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m31.564s
23.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       No time
24.  Jerome D’Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth      1m30.445s*

107% time: 1m33.103s

*Five-place grid penalty for a yellow flag infringement

Lewis Hamilton recovered from an early scare with a fuel leak even before the race started to win the Chinese Grand Prix in dramatic style with some fantastic overtaking moves.

The McLaren driver had a technical issue with the engine refusing to fire up and the rush to prepare the car caused a moment of panic for the engineers in the pits. With only seconds to spare, Hamilton was sent out to make it on the starting grid and drove an aggressive race to take the chequered flag in style.

By winning the Chinese Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton has ended Sebastian Vettel’s run of victories thanks to a three-stop strategy over his rival’s two-stops. With better grip from the Pirellis, Hamilton was able to hunt down the championship leader and pass the tyre-hampered Red Bull in the final laps.

Mark Webber drove an outstanding race to come from P18 on the grid to finish third in the second Red Bull, ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button and Mercedes GP’s Nico Rosberg – both of whom led for long periods in a fascinating race.

Vettel’s race began to get complicated following a poor start off pole position, which allowed both McLarens to get past him into Turn 1. Nico Rosberg also made a good start and Sebastian had to fend off the Mercedes in the opening corners to keep track position.

The trio then ran in a queue covered by two seconds through the first stint, with Rosberg and the Ferraris close behind.

Mercedes then pulled a masterstroke by bringing Rosberg in on lap 12. The German emerged with a clear track and made the most of his fresh Pirellis, but was also helped by a chaotic few laps from the top three. As Hamilton’s tyre performance faded, Vettel surged past him using the Drag Reduction System on the back straight.

Button and Vettel then pitted nose to tail, but bizarrely Button pulled into the Red Bull pit box rather than his own! He was frantically waved on to the correct pit, slightly slowing both pit-stops, although Red Bull reacted quicker and got Vettel out ahead.

With Hamilton losing pace dramatically on his in-lap and being caught and passed by Felipe Massa, Rosberg’s new-tyre pace and uncomplicated out-laps really paid dividends. As the second stint started, Rosberg led Vettel by five seconds, with Button, Massa and Hamilton giving chase.

But while Rosberg and the McLarens were committed to three-stop strategies, Vettel and Massa had decided to go for just two.

The latter looked like the best plan once everyone had made their second stops just after half-distance, for though that put Vettel and Massa fourth and fifth behind Rosberg and the McLarens, they were matching the leaders’ pace and not allowing the top three to pull out a sufficient margin to stay ahead when they made their additional stops.

Hamilton was now on a charge, slicing down the inside of team-mate Button to take second on lap 35, and then quickly catching Rosberg after their third stops and diving past him into Turn 6.

Lewis then hunted down the two-stopping Massa and passed the Ferrari with ease on the pits straight with 12 laps to the flag.

Next in his sights was race leader Vettel and by lap 50 Hamilton was right with the Red Bull and attacking with the Drag Reduction System on the back straight, though the championship leader defended his track position by hugged the inside line at the hairpin every time the McLaren drew alongside.

Hamilton had to be creative and on lap 52, the McLaren driver got much better traction out of Turn 6 and swept through on the inside into the fast Turn 7. After that he quickly pulled away to take a sensational victory in a race that proved the sport’s new rules regulations is achieving everything in providing entertainment for the fans.

Rosberg fell behind Button when he ran wide trying to pass Massa. With an issue with fuel consumption and his tyres just too old to resist the three-stoppers, Massa was swiftly overtaken by Button, Rosberg and even Webber – who also became a factor in the podium battle in the enthralling final stages.

The Australian had made little impression in his first stint on hard ‘Prime’ tyres, but like Sepang last weekend, pitting three times gave him plenty of opportunity to gain ground in clear air – and saving the much quicker soft ‘Option’ for the final stint when everyone else was on Prime gave him a huge pace advantage, as Webber proved by taking fourth from Rosberg with a Turn 6 dive three laps from the end.

Lapping two seconds quicker than anyone else, the Red Bull was flying (setting the fastest lap in the process) and at the end of the penultimate lap, Webber passed Button to grab a sensational podium finish.

Massa had to settle for sixth, but could take satisfaction from outpacing Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso, who both lacked Massa’s speed and lost ground emerging into traffic after pit-stops. He just beat Michael Schumacher to seventh, the Mercedes having got clear of the midfield by making a very early first of three stops.

Renault’s Vitaly Petrov finished in ninth ahead of Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber. As for Paul di Resta, he continues to impress with his speed in the Force India and recorded another points finish with P11, ahead of Nick Heidfeld.

Adrian Sutil’s race in the second Force India was spoiled by contact with Sergio Perez, for which the Sauber driver was penalised with a drive-through.

Toro Rosso’s great qualifying effort turned to nothing, with the pair falling down the race order – with Sebastien Buemi finishing only in P14 behind Rubens Barrichello’s Williams, and Jaime Alguersuari retiring when a right-rear wheel fell off after his pit-stop. Behind Sutil, Heikki Kovalainen gave Team Lotus plenty to cheer by beating Perez and Pastor Maldonado’s Williams to P16.

So a fantastic race in Shanghai. The differences in tyre strategies while running the harder ‘Prime’ tyres compared to the softer ‘Option’ Pirelli offered plenty of overtaking moves and it made the Chinese Grand Prix a thriller. Both Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber drove a sensational race to victory and podium spot respectively.

As for Sebastian Vettel, he still leads the championship with 21 points but he must feel vulnerable as the competitiveness of the McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari is matching the performance of the Red Bull as Formula One heads back to Europe.

Race result from Shanghai, 56 laps:

1.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           1h36:58.226
2.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           +5.198
3.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +7.555
4.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +10.000
5.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +13.448
6.  Massa         Ferrari                    +15.840
7.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +30.622
8.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +31.206
9.  Petrov        Renault                    +57.404
10.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +1:03.273
11.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +1:08.757
12.  Heidfeld      Renault                    +1:12.739
13.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth          +1:30.189
14.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +1:30.671
15.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +1 lap
16.  Kovalainen    Lotus-Renault              +1 lap
17.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari             +1 lap
18.  Maldonado     Williams-Cosworth          +1 lap
19.  Trulli        Lotus-Renault              +1 lap
20.  D’Ambrosio    Virgin-Cosworth            +2 laps
21.  Glock         Virgin-Cosworth            +2 laps
22.  Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth               +2 laps
23.  Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth               +2 laps

Fastest lap: Webber, 1:38.993

Not classified/retirements:
Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari           12 laps

World Championship standings, round 3:

Drivers:
1.  Vettel        68
2.  Hamilton      47
3.  Button        38
4.  Webber        37
5.  Alonso        26
6.  Massa         24
7.  Petrov        17
8.  Heidfeld      15
9.  Rosberg       10
10.  Kobayashi      7
11.  Schumacher     6
12.  Buemi          4
13.  Di Resta       2
14.  Sutil          2

Constructors:
1.  Red Bull-Renault          105
2.  McLaren-Mercedes           85
3.  Ferrari                    50
4.  Renault                    32
5.  Mercedes                   16
6.  Sauber-Ferrari              7
7.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari          4
8.  Force India-Mercedes        4

Next race: Turkish Grand Prix, Istanbul. May 6-8.

Sebastian Vettel achieved his hat trick of pole positions at the Shanghai International Circuit with an impressive lap (one minute. 33.706 seconds) in the flying Red Bull RB7.

The world championship leader remained unbeatable in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix, maintaining his strong form that saw Vettel top all three practice session followed by his fourth successive pole.

With one Red Bull on the front row – with a margin of seven tenths of a second clear of the McLarens of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton – the other car will start Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix down in a disappointing P18.

For Mark Webber, his bad luck continued with a technical issue with the KERS unit during the final practice session and then, in the first stage of qualifying, the Australian was eliminated when Michael Schumacher and Pastor Maldonado improved.

It seems the team made a strategically decision in keeping Webber on the hard ‘Prime’ tyres in order to save a set of soft ‘Option’ tyres for the main race. This tactic back-fired not only for a lack of grip but the problem with the KERS meant the Australian was unable to use the device to gain extra straight-line speed and in the end, he was knocked out in Q1.

McLaren’s Jenson Button was the only challenger to the reigning world champion, but was still 0.7 seconds adrift of pole position. At least Jenson is ahead of his team-mate Lewis Hamilton, by a small margin of 0.042 seconds.

Taking the fourth position on the grid is Nico Rosberg for Mercedes GP, while forming row three are the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.

The upper midfield pack was shuffled by a late red flag in Q2, caused by Vitaly Petrov’s Renault grinding to a halt on track at Turn 6.

That happened with two minutes remaining, at which point the Toro Rossos and Force Indias were inside the top ten. Unlike the Saubers, Williams, Mercedes and Petrov’s team-mate Nick Heidfeld.

In the scramble once Petrov’s car was removed, both Toro Rosso drivers and the Force India of Paul di Resta were able to keep their Q3 positions. The same cannot be said to team-mate Adrian Sutil, who was again out-qualified by the former DTM champion and will start the race in P11.

It was another solid performance by Paul di Resta and by starting eighth, in between Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi, the Scot has a good opportunity to score points in the race.

A mistake at the hairpin left Mercedes GP’s Michael Schumacher in P14, as for Nick Heidfeld – who damaged his Renault’s front wing in practice sessions one and two – the German could do no better than P16.

Williams suffered another frustrating qualifying session with Rubens Barrichello only in P15 with team-mate Pastor Maldonado two places behind.

And at the back of the grid, not including Mark Webber’s Red Bull, are the usual suspects with Team Lotus, Virgin Racing and Hispania.

Jerome D’Ambrosio out-qualified his Virgin Racing team-mate Timo Glock for the first time this season, while both Hispanias were comfortably within the 107 per cent margin.

Qualifying times from Shanghai:

1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m33.706s
2.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m34.421s
3.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m34.463s
4.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m34.670s
5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m35.119s
6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m35.145s
7.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m36.158s
8.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m36.190s
9.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m36.203s
10.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              No time
11.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes 1m35.874s
12.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m36.053s
13.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m36.236s
14.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m36.457s
15.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m36.465s
16.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault              1m36.611s
17.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m36.956s
18. Mark Webber            Red Bull-Renault     1m36.468s
19. Heikki Kovalainen      Lotus-Renault        1m37.894s
20. Jarno Trulli           Lotus-Renault        1m38.318s
21. Jerome D’Ambrosio      Virgin-Cosworth      1m39.119s
22. Timo Glock             Virgin-Cosworth      1m39.708s
23. Tonio Liuzzi           HRT-Cosworth         1m40.212s
24. Narain Karthikeyan     HRT-Cosworth         1m40.445s

107 per cent qualifying time: 1m41.941s

Sebastian Vettel continued his impressive start as the reigning world champion with race victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Despite the KERS unit not working during the 56-lap race, the consistency, speed and tyre management from Vettel enable the Red Bull Racing driver to pull away from the pack and score his twelfth career Grand Prix win.

McLaren’s Jenson Button finished in second while Nick Heidfeld earned Renault’s second successive podium following a great drive.

Mark Webber recovered from a poor start to take fourth position for Red Bull Racing, ahead of the Scuderia pair of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, with the latter damaging his front wing after clipping Hamilton’s car.

As for Lewis Hamilton, who started the race alongside Vettel on the front row, the McLaren driver suffered tyre degradation in the late stages of the Malaysian Grand Prix meaning four visits to the pits and seventh at the chequered flag.

As the five red lights went out, Sebastian Vettel made a clean getaway from the right side of the grid to lead into Turn 1. To the surprise of the world champion going into the first corner it wasn’t Lewis Hamilton alongside but it was the Renault of Nick Heidfeld who made a fantastic start from sixth.

Team-mate Vitaly Petrov also benefitted from a great start from eighth on the grid to take fifth on the opening lap, slotting in-between Hamilton and Jenson Button but ahead of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso.

The same cannot be said for Mark Webber, as his KERS already seemingly not working, the Australian plunged to ninth and was passed by a combative Kamui Kobayashi further around the lap.

Heidfeld did not lose too much time to Vettel, although the Renault staying within seven seconds of the leading Red Bull through the first stint. When Heidfeld then lost ground in the first stops, which released the McLarens and the rapidly-recovering Alonso to start gaining on Vettel.

While Hamilton got Vettel’s lead down to under four seconds, Alonso passed Button for third into the first corner early in the second stint and started closing in as well.

Vettel then looked even more vulnerable after the second of the leaders’ three pit-stops when his Red Bull team informed him that he could no longer use his KERS. But his pursuers’ hopes of taking advantage of this were quickly dashed – even without the energy boosting system Vettel managed to pull clear during this stint, stretching his lead over Hamilton back up to eight seconds.

It was Button who started making progress in the second half of the Grand Prix, taking third back from Alonso in the second pit-stops, then making an early final stop on lap 38 and setting some great lap times thereafter – which allowed him to take second position from team-mate Hamilton who pitted on lap 41.

As Button then started to reduce the gap towards Vettel, Hamilton was struggling to maintain his pace on the hard Prime tyres. Fernando Alonso sensed the opportunity to overtake and was soon all over the back of his racing rival, but with his Drag Reduction System not working, the Ferrari driver had to be creative in finding the right place to overtake.

On lap 45 Alonso got too close through Turn 3 and clipped the rear of the McLaren damaging his Ferrari front wing, forcing an extra pit-stop.

The lead up to the incident resulting in twenty-second penalties handed to both Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso by the stewards hours after the race. See comments for further details.

Hamilton was then caught by first Heidfeld, who slipped past into Turn 1 using the DRS with four laps to the flag, then the recovering Webber – who despite being on a four-stop strategy and still without KERS – managed to get back up with the leaders. The Australian grabbed fourth when Hamilton slid off the track briefly.

Vettel kept Button at bay to win by 3.2 seconds, with Heidfeld resisting the pressure from Webber in the final laps to claim third.

Alonso charged back onto Massa’s rear wing but had to settle for sixth behind his Scuderia team-mate, with Hamilton only seventh after his additional pit-stop.

Petrov was set for seventh until a wild moment on lap 53, when he ran wide and tried to rejoin the track flat-out over the grass. That launched the Renault in the air and as it crashed back down to the track, the force of the impact broke the steering column mount and the Russian was out on the spot.

Kobayashi managed to make a two-stop strategy work to take eighth position, after several spectacular battles with Michael Schumacher, who was ninth on a tough afternoon for Mercedes. His team-mate Nico Rosberg fell into the midfield on opening lap and never recovered, finishing P12 behind the Force Indias, as Paul di Resta recorded another points finish with a solid drive in his second Grand Prix.

Further back, Team Lotus got closer to the established midfield pace than ever before as Heikki Kovalainen finished P15 behind the Toro Rossos. Both Williams retired, as did Melbourne hero Sergio Perez after the Sauber sustained damage from running over debris.

So a fantastic result for Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull Racing. Pole Position followed by race victory and scoring the maximum available championship points. The reliability of the KERS may still be a major issue for the team but the speed of the RB7 continues to impress this season. Can McLaren fight back in the next race in Shanghai? We will find out in seven days time.

Race results from Sepang, 56 laps:

1.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           1h37:39.832
2.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +3.261
3.  Heidfeld      Renault                    +25.075
4.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +26.384
5.  Massa         Ferrari                    +36.958
6.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +57.248*
7.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +1:07.239
8.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +1:09.957*
9.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +1:24.896
10.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +1:31.563
11.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +1:45.000
12.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +1 lap
13.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +1 lap
14.  Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +1 lap
15.  Kovalainen    Lotus-Renault              +1 lap
16.  Glock         Virgin-Cosworth            +2 laps
17.  Petrov        Renault                    +4 laps

*Twenty-second penalty

Fastest lap: Webber, 1:40.571

Not classified/retirements:

Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth                 47 laps
D’Ambrosio    Virgin-Cosworth              43 laps
Trulli        Lotus-Renault                32 laps
Perez         Sauber-Ferrari               24 laps
Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth            23 laps
Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth                 15 laps
Maldonado     Williams-Cosworth            9 laps

World Championship standings, round 2:

Drivers:
1.  Vettel        50
2.  Button        26
3.  Hamilton      22
4.  Webber        22
5.  Alonso        20
6.  Massa         16
7.  Heidfeld        15
8.  Petrov      15
9.  Kobayashi      6
10.  Buemi          4
11.  Sutil     2
12.  Schumacher          2
13.  Di Resta       2

Constructors:
1.  Red Bull-Renault           72
2.  McLaren-Mercedes           48
3.  Ferrari                    36
4.  Renault                    30
5.  Sauber-Ferrari             6
6.  Torro Rosso-Ferrari                    4
7.  Force India-Mercedes          4
8.  Mercedes        2

Next race: Chinese Grand Prix, Shanghai. April 15-17.

Championship leader Sebastian Vettel achieved his 17th career pole position in Sepang and denying Lewis Hamilton from the top spot in a thrilling qualifying session.

Hamilton’s first flying lap in Q3 was impressive with a time of one minute, 35.000 seconds. Edging out Vettel by a tenth of a second at that moment.

The McLaren driver went even faster on his second run with one minute, 34.974 seconds but the world champion was able to react to the challenge and produced a fantastic time of one minute, 34.870 seconds to maintain his perfect qualifying record this season. Although Vettel’s margin was only 0.104 seconds compared to Melbourne.

After setting the pace in Friday’s two practice sessions, Mark Webber could only manage third but was only 0.309 seconds adrift to his Red Bull Racing team-mate. As for Jenson Button, who was the quickest in Q2, the McLaren driver will start in fourth position, only 0.021 seconds away from Webber.

That quartet had the pole position fight to themselves, with the rest of the frontrunners a long way off the pace and without enough soft ‘Option’ tyres to do more than one Q3 run.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso led this ‘best of the rest’ group in fifth, with his team-mate Felipe Massa down in seventh. This qualifying form is very disappointing for the Scuderia and questions will be asked on why that impressive winter testing form has disappeared over the course of two qualifying events in Australia and here in Malaysia.

The Renaults made it to Q3 despite the difficult start to the weekend, as during practice both Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov suffered suspension uprights failure. The former recorded the sixth fastest time, putting aside his Melbourne misery while the latter will start in eighth.

Rounding out the top ten is Nico Rosberg for Mercedes ahead of Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi.

For the second race in a row, Michael Schumacher missed out on a Q3 spot and will start P11 – this time after his Mercedes team-mate Rosberg’s late improvement knocked him out.

Neither Toro Rosso reached Q3 at Sepang, with Sebastian Buemi losing a large part of his sidepod bodywork in Q1, which required a brief red flag period. The Swiss driver was able to recover from this to qualify ahead of his team-mate Jaime Alguersuari in P12.

The Force Indias will start the Malaysian Grand Prix in P14 and P17, with Paul di Resta out-qualifying Adrian Sutil once again. Split in-between is Rubens Barrichello for Williams, while Melbourne hero Sergio Perez was only P16 for Sauber.

Even though Team Lotus didn’t get through to Q2, there is a great sign of encouragement as Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli got within half a second of the Williams of Pastor Maldonado. Plus beating Virgin Racing by a margin of two seconds.

As for Hispania, both Tonio Liuzzi and Narain Karthikeyan made the 107 per cent qualifying cut very comfortably in Q1 and will take part in Sunday’s race.

Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix will be intriguing as the excessive tyre degradation seen in the practice sessions could see three to four pit-stops during 56 laps. In addition, the weather forecast has hinted a chance of rain meaning we could see an exciting race!

Can the Drag Reduction System – which can be used on the main start and finish straight, which is significant longer than in Melbourne – provide a better representation on the new rules to make cars overtake one another? We will find out and more come race day in Sepang.

Qualifying times from Sepang:

1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m34.870s
2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m34.974s
3.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m35.179s
4.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m35.200s
5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m35.802s
6.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault              1m36.124s
7.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m36.251s
8.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              1m36.324s
9.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m36.809s
10.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m36.820s
11.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m37.035s
12.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m37.160s
13.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m37.347s
14.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m37.370s
15.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m37.496s
16.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m37.528s
17.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes 1m37.593s
18.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m38.276s
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault        1m38.645s
20.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault        1m38.791s
21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth      1m40.648s
22.  Jerome D’Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth      1m41.001s
23.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth         1m41.549s
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m42.574s

107 per cent lap time: 1m43.516s