ITS AGAIN ANOTHER RED BULL QUALIFYING SHOW AT BRITISH GP
2010-07-10 23:27:07 Author: admin Source:
Red Bull Racing duo Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber again powered another 1-2 for tomorrow's British Grand Prix, Round 10 of the Formula One World Championship. Vettel notched up his fifth pole of the season in qualifying, using soft compound tyres for a scintillating 1m 29.615secs around the new configuration Silverstone circuit. Meanwhile, Webber wasn't too distant away from his team mate, tagging Vettel home in second with a 1:29.758. Only the Red Bull cars went below the 1:30 mark as third place man Ferrari's Fernando Alonso managed a 1:30.426. Team mate Felipe Massa was no where near the top runners' pace as he struggled to seventh overall.
Local driver McLaren's Lewis Hamilton had no answer to the Red Bulls and the Ferrari, finishing almost a second down from Vettel's pole position time. Hamilton said in a post-qualifying interview, “Fourth position makes me happy. The new parts are an improvement, but we just weren’t able to get them all to work properly yesterday. And while that meant we had to take most of them off last night, the team still did a remarkable job to get us ready for qualifying this afternoon."
“We knew we were some way off the Red Bulls on sheer pace, so my grid position was really down to getting as good a lap as possible around here. And, honestly, I reckon this is the best lap I’ve ever done – and it’s down to all the fans around here: the support around this track is like nowhere else," he added.
Mercedes GP drivers showed vast improvement in performance from recent races with Nico Rosberg achieving fifth place on the grid and Michael Schumacher in tenth position after a mistake on his quick lap in Q3 compromised his chances of finishing higher up the field.
Renault saw Robert Kubica pushed the top five best qualifiers' bracket for a bit, but could not quite match the first five runners' pace and the Polish driver ended up sixth overall. "It hasn’t been the easiest weekend so far and we have been struggling with the overall feeling and pace of the car. We’ve been changing lots of things, but it has been difficult to put everything together. It felt like a great result just to get into Q3, so I’m very happy to qualify in P6 and pleased with the lap time – especially because, on the first lap of my final run, I had a big moment in turn 1 and nearly lost the car at 270km/h!" Kubica commented after the session.
Pedro de la Rosa achieved his best qualifying result of the season so far when he finished ninth in Silverstone. It was the fourth time this year the team had made it into the top ten qualifying with one car, and for the first time it was De la Rosa. Team mate, Kamui Kobayashi, qualified 12th.
Results
1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1:29.615
2 Mark Webber Red Bull 1:29.758
3 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:30.426
4 Lewis Hamilton McLaren 1:30.556
5 Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 1:30.625
6 Robert Kubica Renault 1:31.040
7 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:31.172
8 Rubens Barrichello Williams 1:31.175
9 Pedro de la Rosa Sauber1:31.274
10 Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 1:31.430
