Vettel takes pole in Turkey

A confident Sebastian Vettel

Come and catch me boys. Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel make a statement to the rest of the teams in qualifying for Sunday's Grand prix of Turkey by setting a quick time early in Q3 and then not bothering to even go out for a 2nd run in Q3, yet still took pole with a 1m25.049s lap.

His teammate Mark Webber was 2nd at 1m25.454s and Nico Rosberg was third in his Mercedes proving the German team has improved dramatically.

Lewis Hamilton was 4th for McLaren and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top-5 in his Ferrari.

Sebastian Vettel is driving like a true World Champion

It was Vettel's 19th F1 pole and 4th of this year. He has won pole for every race so far in his Red Bull Renault.

“I’m very happy. It was a bit funny in Q3 today, as both Mark and I decided we would skip the second run and so we finished earlier than normal," said Vettel.

"It was a strange feeling, as the other cars are on track setting times and you are in the garage watching – they might beat you, but you can only watch the screens and there’s nothing you can do. It was an odd feeling but a good decision to save tires for tomorrow’s race. I messed up the car yesterday morning, so we missed the session in the afternoon, but the guys fixed it for today and I think they did a very good job. We have been up there with the times today, although we didn’t have a trouble free morning and we had a bit to catch up. I like the track here which helps and it was nice to see that, without many laps, I was able to come back and find the rhythm, so all-in-all I’m very happy today."

Red Bull saved a set of tires for the race Sunday by sitting out both Vettel and Webber from the final run in Q3.

“I would have liked to have got a couple more tenths to have the margin; obviously Sebastian did a very good lap for pole, but my lap wasn’t too bad," said Webber.

"We spoke before qualifying and decided that, as tomorrow is going to be a long race, every lap you could save today might help tomorrow. It turns out that we’re in the best possible grid positions and the team did a good job, as we have saved a set of tires too, so it’s looking good. There were some good decisions from the team. I’m happy with today and am looking forward to tomorrow’s race."

Results

POS

DRIVER NATIONALITY TEAM TIME
1. Sebastian Vettel Germany Red Bull-Renault 1:25.049
2. Mark Webber Australia Red Bull-Renault 1:25.454
3. Nico Rosberg Germany Mercedes GP 1:25.574
4. Lewis Hamilton Britain McLaren-Mercedes 1:25.595
5. Fernando Alonso Spain Ferrari 1:25.851
6. Jenson Button Britain McLaren-Mercedes 1:25.982
7. Vitaly Petrov Russia Renault 1:26.296
8. Michael Schumacher Germany Mercedes GP 1:26.646
9. Nick Heidfeld Germany Renault 1:26.659
10. Felipe Massa Brazil Ferrari No Time
11. Rubens Barrichello Brazil Williams-Cosworth 1:26.764
12. Adrian Sutil Germany Force India-Mercedes 1:27.027
13. Paul di Resta Britain Force India-Mercedes 1:27.145
14. Pastor Maldonado Venezuela Williams-Cosworth 1:27.236
15. Sergio Perez Mexico Sauber-Ferrari 1:27.244
16. Sebastien Buemi Switzerland Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:27.255
17. Jaime Alguersuari Spain Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:27.572
18. Heikki Kovalainen Finland Lotus-Renault 1:28.780
19. Jarno Trulli Italy Lotus-Renault 1:29.673
20. Jerome d'Ambrosio Belgium Virgin-Cosworth 1:30.445
21. Vitantonio Liuzzi Italy HRT-Cosworth 1:30.692
22. Timo Glock Germany Virgin-Cosworth 1:30.813
23. Narain Karthikeyan India HRT-Cosworth 1:31.564
24. Kamui Kobayashi Japan Sauber-Ferrari No Time