Webber calm about first pole of the year
Mark Webber scored his first pole of the season so far, but he remained surprisingly calm about it. Sebastian Vettel on the other hand was hopeful for pole himself, but his final attempt was hampered by some traffic during his warm-up lap.
Mark Webber, Position: POLE POSITION! (3rd Practice – P7, 1:38.766):
“It was a tight session for all of us. I think as the session unfolded, people were having different balance issues on different tyre compounds. I was happy with my lap there, it was solid and it’s good to get pole. It’s a great place to start the race from. I’m looking to get off the first corner very well, that’s important as there are two long straights after that.”
Sebastian Vettel, Position: 2nd, (3rd Practice – P1, 1:37.642):
“Overall we can be very happy with the result. We were quite quick in the first and second qualifying sessions and had a good start to Q3. On the last run, I had to back off starting the lap as Massa was there, it wasn’t his fault, but I had to back off. Nevertheless, the second lap in Q3 wasn’t good enough. I lost time in the middle sector, which seemed to be okay all weekend, but when the circuit ramped I wasn’t able to go with it, so I lost a bit, but second is a good position so start from. There are long straights near the start, so it could be interesting tomorrow.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal:
“For the second time in a week, it’s fantastic to have locked out the front row. Mark drove a fantastic final lap to secure the pole position by half a tenth from Sebastian, who had dominated until that point. It’s Renault’s 200th pole position, which we are delighted to have achieved with them. It’s important that we now convert this strong qualifying into plenty of points tomorrow.”
Cyril Dumont, Renault engine support:
“Today is an important day. Not only have we got the front row of the grid again, but we have also scored our 200th pole position with the Renault engine. We started with Jean-Pierre Jabouille in 1979 and 500 races later we have achieved more than 40 percent of pole positions from all our Formula One qualifying sessions. That’s a very strong score for Renault. Among these 200 pole positions, more than 40 were achieved with Red Bull Racing and our two drivers, Mark and Sebastian. So, I would like to thank everyone at Red Bull, both drivers and everyone working at our factory at Renault.”
