Webber disappointed, Vettel hopeful
Yet another strong performance by Sebastian Vettel has put Red Bull on pole position, the 10th time by the German this season only. Mark Webber, currently second in the championship, has a tough challenge ahead of him as he is just 5th, behind all other title contenders.
Sebastian Vettel, pole position, chassis 5:
“I’m happy – it was a great lap and I’m proud of it. It was a very tight qualifying session and it’s even more thrilling when you know there’s tension going into it and you know ‘this is it’. We only did one run in Q3, so only one chance. We probably did more laps than the others, but we only used one set of tyres. Looking back I was surprised by how much the circuit ramped up at the end and maybe it would have been better to do two runs, but what we did was enough for pole. The car was fantastic today, much better than yesterday evening, so I think we made a step forward. I think we achieved the maximum we could today. Hopefully we will have a good start tomorrow and a good first lap and then it’s a long race from there – so let’s see what we can do.”
Mark Webber, 5th, chassis 6:
“I’m not rapped to be fifth on the grid, it’s disappointing, but there’s still a long way to go tomorrow – the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. I would like to have been further up, but I couldn't get the pace. We need to be there at the end of tomorrow’s race and a lot can still happen; I haven’t helped things today, but the Championship’s not decided today. I didn't seem to have the grip the other guys had and I need to have a look where I was losing time. We will just have to do the best job we can tomorrow, it’s a long race – we’re still in the hunt and that's the main thing.”
Christian Horner, Team principal:
“That was a very exciting last session; Sebastian completed an excellent lap on his second timed to get pole. It was always going to a tricky choice with how many laps to do in the last session and both drivers decided that they wanted to do more than two. It was ultimately the choice of Sebastian and Mark to do three and four laps respectively. Mark ended up P5 unfortunately today and so is going to need a good start and a good race tomorrow. Today has set up a scintillating grid for the final race of the year.”
Fabrice Lom, Renault principal engineer:
“It’s the last qualifying of the year, so it’s time to do some statistics: First, it’s our 15th pole, so we have equalled the world record of pole positions achieved by a team in one year. And secondly, the Red Bull drivers are the only two to get through to Q3 at every race this year. To talk about today, as a team we had our glory when we won the Constructors’ World Championship at the last race, and now it’s down to the two men. We will let them battle while trying to do the best job possible to not interfere with their performance. Today Seb won the qualifying battle – he’s first and Mark is fifth. Now it’s down to the race tomorrow, I think it will be very interesting to watch.”
Practice 3
Sebastian Vettel: P1 Best Time: 1:40.696, Laps: 17, Chassis 5
Mark Webber: P2 Best Time: 1:40.829, Laps: 14, Chassis 6
