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Vettel cautious despite taking pole for Australian Grand Prix
Source: Agencies |
March 27, 2011, Sunday
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WORLD champion Sebastian Vettel remained cautious about his chances of winning the season-opening Australian Grand Prix despite blowing away his rivals in qualifying to claim pole position in Melbourne yesterday.
The 23-year-old Red Bull driver's blistering flying lap was almost eight tenths of a second faster than Briton Lewis Hamilton in second place and the quickest ever seen at the Albert Park circuit.
Having failed to finish after claiming pole last year, however, and with a raft of changes to the sport this season, not least in the new Pirelli tires, the German was not getting carried away by his dominant performance.
"It was quite promising for Sunday, we'll see how we get on," he told reporters. "We've certainly done the first step and this is the way you want to start the season.
"It was obviously a pleasure today, quite fast, and I'm very, very happy with the result. But if you look at the points, we have zero points."
The German set the quickest time in all three sessions and managed a searing best lap of one minute 23.529 seconds, 0.778 seconds quicker than Hamilton.
Hamilton's late lap of 1.24.307 in his McLaren knocked Vettel's teammate Mark Webber (1.24.395) off the front row of the grid, leaving the Australian to line up alongside Jenson Button in the second McLaren (1.24.779).
Ferrari's twice former world champion Fernando Alonso claimed a spot on the third row in fifth place next to Renault's Vitaly Petrov, the best ever qualifying position for the Russian.
Button, who will be gunning for a third successive win at Albert Park, conceded that Vettel had been untouchable.
"If you look at the pace of Sebastian, I mean they're in a different league really in qualifying, whether it's the same in the race I don't know," said Button.
McLaren struggled for reliability in testing and Hamilton paid tribute to the "fantastic job" done by the team to give its two British drivers a competitive car.
Webber is aiming to become the first Australian to win his home grand prix and was clearly disappointed at being so far behind his teammate. "I'm not overly rapt to be third on the grid. I wasn't really in the fight for pole and I need to address that."
German Nico Rosberg steered his Mercedes to seventh place on the grid ahead of Brazilian Felipe Massa on what was a disappointing day for Ferrari.
Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber and Toro Rosso's Sebastian Buemi will start ninth and tenth, respectively.
German Michael Schumacher failed to fulfil the promise of good preseason testing with Mercedes when he was unable to get through to the final session of qualifying by 0.089 seconds.
"After testing, coming to the first race we had expected certainly a different performance so naturally there is some disappointment," the seven-time world champion, who will start 11th, said.
HRT's Vitantonio Liuzzi and Narain Karthikeyan failed to get within 107 percent of the best time in the first qualifying session so will not be allowed to race.
The struggling Spanish-based team's appeal to the stewards was dismissed later in the day, leaving just 22 cars on the grid for today's race.
The 23-year-old Red Bull driver's blistering flying lap was almost eight tenths of a second faster than Briton Lewis Hamilton in second place and the quickest ever seen at the Albert Park circuit.
Having failed to finish after claiming pole last year, however, and with a raft of changes to the sport this season, not least in the new Pirelli tires, the German was not getting carried away by his dominant performance.
"It was quite promising for Sunday, we'll see how we get on," he told reporters. "We've certainly done the first step and this is the way you want to start the season.
"It was obviously a pleasure today, quite fast, and I'm very, very happy with the result. But if you look at the points, we have zero points."
The German set the quickest time in all three sessions and managed a searing best lap of one minute 23.529 seconds, 0.778 seconds quicker than Hamilton.
Hamilton's late lap of 1.24.307 in his McLaren knocked Vettel's teammate Mark Webber (1.24.395) off the front row of the grid, leaving the Australian to line up alongside Jenson Button in the second McLaren (1.24.779).
Ferrari's twice former world champion Fernando Alonso claimed a spot on the third row in fifth place next to Renault's Vitaly Petrov, the best ever qualifying position for the Russian.
Button, who will be gunning for a third successive win at Albert Park, conceded that Vettel had been untouchable.
"If you look at the pace of Sebastian, I mean they're in a different league really in qualifying, whether it's the same in the race I don't know," said Button.
McLaren struggled for reliability in testing and Hamilton paid tribute to the "fantastic job" done by the team to give its two British drivers a competitive car.
Webber is aiming to become the first Australian to win his home grand prix and was clearly disappointed at being so far behind his teammate. "I'm not overly rapt to be third on the grid. I wasn't really in the fight for pole and I need to address that."
German Nico Rosberg steered his Mercedes to seventh place on the grid ahead of Brazilian Felipe Massa on what was a disappointing day for Ferrari.
Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber and Toro Rosso's Sebastian Buemi will start ninth and tenth, respectively.
German Michael Schumacher failed to fulfil the promise of good preseason testing with Mercedes when he was unable to get through to the final session of qualifying by 0.089 seconds.
"After testing, coming to the first race we had expected certainly a different performance so naturally there is some disappointment," the seven-time world champion, who will start 11th, said.
HRT's Vitantonio Liuzzi and Narain Karthikeyan failed to get within 107 percent of the best time in the first qualifying session so will not be allowed to race.
The struggling Spanish-based team's appeal to the stewards was dismissed later in the day, leaving just 22 cars on the grid for today's race.
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