Vettel puts Red Bull on pole again

F1 Grand Prix, GP Turkey, Istanbul Park

Sebastian Vettel is again the only one able to beat the Brawns as he put his Red Bull RB5 ahead of everybody else in today's qualifying session. Championship leader Jenson Button is second while his teammate Barrichello takes third place.

Giancarlo Fisichella is the first to take the track, followed by Sebastien Bourdais. Interestingly this weekend, the free practice sessions have shown that all cars are fairly close to each other in terms of performance. Especially in FP3 all cars were within 1.7s of each other. The slower teams therefore have an interesting chance here and possibly also for the rest of the seasion.

Turkey is also warmer that expected at 28°C. Earlier weather expectations reported chilly conditions which could have put up a problem for the tyres.

6 minutes after Fisichella completed his first lap, Nakajima is fastest, ahead of Vettel, Rosberg Vettel and Massa. While Toyota appears to be back into the game somehow, Renault has been off the pace all weekend and may face a difficult qualifying and race later on.

Several late session attempts change little while Piquet ends up in the gravel trap. Eliminated are Hamilton, Piquet, Buemi, Fisichella and Bourdais.

Halfway through Q2, Button is back in the lead, just 0.011s quicker than Vettel's Red Bull. Barrichello is third, also with a mere difference of several hundredths. Alonso is down in 10th position but still only 0.25s behind Vettel. Along with him are Raikkonen and Heidfeld who are still insecure of their Q3 position.

After a string of final attempts where many drivers had to give up a lap due to traffic, Alonso just managed to get through. Out are Heidfeld, Nakajima, Glock, Kovalainen and Sutil.

Early on in Q3, Raikkonen takes the track quickly to set a base-time. 3 minutes later it's beaten by Trulli, followed by Vettel who proved marginally faster. Button got beaten to third, Webber fourth and Alonso 5th.

Barrichello waited until only 2:30 minutes are left on the clock to complete his first flying lap and ends up in 8th place. It's obviously impossible for him to dive into the pitlane for another set of tyres, so he continues on the same primes. His second lap brings him to 7th and he starts another flying lap.

Most others are however on the option tyres. Webber takes up the challenge and crosses the finish line for his last lap as first, with provisional pole. Button improves second later, only to be topped again by Sebastian Vettel. The Red Bull's are obviously back where they want to be.