F1 FOLLOWER: Istanbul Qualifying-Vettel takes the pole position in the pits!!

8/5/11,

Sebastian Vettel continues the good job, taking the pole position for the 4th time!!

Another pole position, the fourth in four races, was celebrated by Sebastian Vettel. Red Bull Racing completely dominated in qualifying of the Turkish Grand Prix with their drivers locking the first row of the grid completing the process ... in the pits. They had the best early lap-times and both Vettel and Mark Webber left their cars a half minutes before the end of Q3.

The others tried to improve but seeing that they had not any hope to catch the timing of RB7, tried to preserve the tires in the face of the race. In the second row of the grid will be Nico Rosberg, who confirmed the improved Mercedes GP with his best performance in qualifying and Lewis Hamilton on behalf of McLaren.

Fernando Alonso picked up the Ferrari flag scoring the fifth best time and will start next with the McLaren of Jenson while in the fourth row will be the Renault's Vitaly Petrov and W02 of Michael Schumacher and in the fifth row will be the R31's Nick Heidfeld and the Ferrari's Felipe Massa, who for the third consecutive year, was looking back to seasons of absolute sovereignty in Istanbul (2006-2008).

Drivers eliminated in Q1!!

18	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Renault	1’28.780
19	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Renault	1’29.673
20	Jerome d’Ambrosio	Virgin-Cosworth	1’30.445
21	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT-Cosworth	1’30.692
22	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	1’30.813
23	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	1’31.564
24	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	No time

In Q2 there were no surprises. Williams finally smiled with Rubens Barrichello being the «best of the rest», Force India to follow on capacity and Sergio Perez to affix the Sauber ahead of both Scuderia Toro Rosso.

Drivers eliminated in Q2!!

11	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1’26.764
12	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1’27.027
13	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1’27.124
14	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Cosworth	1’27.236
15	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	1’27.244
16	Sebastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’27.255
17	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’27.572

Apart from the battle of the Q3 were the usual suspects as well as Kamui Kobayashi, who failed to make time even after being betrayed by the engine of Ferrari used by Sauber. For the new teams, Lotus was comfortably ahead, with Heikki Kovalainen 7 tenths of seconds behind the qualifying limit. Jarno Trulli was slower but had a problem with DRS. The Hispania's Racing of Tonio Liuzzi wedge between the two Virgin.

Top ten drivers/positions in Q3!!

1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1’25.049
2	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1’25.454
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1’25.574
4	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1’25.595
5	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1’25.851
6	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1’25.982
7	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1’26.296
8	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1’26.646
9	Nick Heidfeld	Renault	1’26.659
10	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	No time