Vettel takes 50th Red Bull pole
Sebastian Vettel took the 50th pole position for Red Bull Racing at Monza. The party was completed by Mark Webber, as his second best time puts both Red Bull cars on the front row of the Italian Grand Prix starting grid tomorrow.
Sebastian Vettel, 1st: “We didn’t expect to be so strong here, with both cars on the front row. It’s due to hard work from everyone in the team working long hours; we’ve had years where we’ve had a good car, but not a car that’s competitive in low down force trim, so in that regard we did our homework. This circuit has been a bit up and down for us, but this year it’s surely been more up so far! The car feels great, but let’s see what we can do tomorrow; we don’t get any points from today.”
Mark Webber, 2nd: “After yesterday we thought we could challenge for the front row, but you never know and as we saw in Belgium and today, the grid can sometimes get a bit mixed up. But overall we stayed strong and have to focus on ourselves. The guys did a very good job; it’s not an easy track to pull everything together over one lap. The result is the maximum for the team and it was pretty much the maximum for me today; Seb has always been very strong here and he’s a tough nut to crack at this venue. I hope to have a strong race from there tomorrow.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal: “A fantastic team performance to get our 50th and Sebastian’s 40th pole position here in Monza. We’ve had a strong car all weekend, but it’s a track that hasn’t historically been our strongest, so it’s the best possible place to be starting tomorrow’s race from to try and convert today’s result in to a good points haul. The weather could be a factor tomorrow and there’s still a long way to go, but a really satisfying day today.”
Thierry Salvi, Renault support: “We’ve looked strong all weekend, but you never take anything for granted here: delivering strong top-end power without compromising stability for the chicanes sees you making decisions on a knife-edge. We’ve worked to consolidate the inherent speed in the car and it seemed to continue to come our way today. Seb and Mark both did a great job to lock out the front row, which we can hopefully convert into the same result tomorrow.”
