Sebastian Vettel - Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images
Sebastian Vettel said that he was ‘very happy’ after securing pole position in Brazil today and beating the driver record for the number of pole positions scored in one season.
With today’s qualifying result in Interlagos, that record now stands at fifteen, one more than the number scored by Nigel Mansell back in 1992.
Sebastian Vettel celebrates beating Nigel Mansell's record in style - Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images
“It's pretty special to get the record,” said Vettel. “Nigel obviously took three or four races less to achieve it, but nevertheless it's been an incredible year for us and an incredible journey and it's not yet over, we've got another chapter tomorrow and I'm very happy.
“It's hard to believe. I didn't feel that happy yesterday, but this morning I was much happier with the car and how it felt, it was much more to my liking and I was able to go from there and improve to get the pole. You know what you can do and the time you should be able to get ahead of the lap, but when you cross the line – you know if you have done it or not, without looking at the time.
“There wasn't much left today and that gives extreme satisfaction – and it gets even better when the engineer comes on the radio and tells you you've done it.”
Webber was only about a tenth of Vettel’s pole position time, and he was happy to secure Red Bull‘s seventh front-row lock-out of the season.
“Qualifying was a good effort today from the whole team,” said Webber. “It was very close with Sebastian, he did a great lap again, but there wasn't much between us. It was a good session today and we know there's going to be some weather coming in, which will mix things up a bit. That's very good for the people at home watching on TV, but it means a few grey hairs for us sitting in the cockpit. I'm looking forward to the race, it's a good challenge here and it would be great to finish the season with a good result.”
Team principal Christian Horner, who has been an almost-constant source of superlatives this season as he describes Vettel’s performances once again heaped praise on his driver.
“An awesome achievement by Sebastian and the team today,” he said. “It's a new record in Formula One, which is a small piece of history for Sebastian and is thoroughly deserved. He shared the record with Nigel for two weeks and he now has some fairly illustrious names behind him, so a great performance. A great performance also from Mark Webber today to lock out the front row ahead of what I'm sure will be a really exciting final Grand Prix of 2011.”
