Red Bull Racing secured their second front row lock out in two races today at Korea. Mark Webber just beat teammate Sebastian Vettel to pole position after both cars had shown strongly in all three practice sessions.
Vettel was left slightly irritated by the result however, feeling he may have been slightly held up by Felipe Massa just before he started his last flying lap.
“Overall we can be very happy with the result. We were quite quick in the first and second qualifying sessions and had a good start to Q3. On the last run, I had to back off starting the lap as Massa was there, it wasn’t his fault, but I had to back off.”
“Nevertheless, the second lap in Q3 wasn’t good enough. I lost time in the middle sector, which seemed to be okay all weekend, but when the circuit ramped I wasn’t able to go with it, so I lost a bit, but second is a good position so start from. There are long straights near the start, so it could be interesting tomorrow,” he added.
For Webber, it was his first official pole position of the year, despite having started from pole in Monaco. A penalty that day meant Michael Schumacher should have started on pole, but Webber duly inherited the pole and subsequent victory.
It was double celebrations too, being Renault power’s 200th pole position in Formula One.
“It was a tight session for all of us. I think as the session unfolded, people were having different balance issues on different tyre compounds. I was happy with my lap there, it was solid and it’s good to get pole. It’s a great place to start the race from. I’m looking to get off the first corner very well, that’s important as there are two long straights after that,” the Australian said.
“For the second time in a week, it’s fantastic to have locked out the front row. Mark drove a fantastic final lap to secure the pole position by half a tenth from Sebastian, who had dominated until that point. It’s Renault’s 200th pole position, which we are delighted to have achieved with them. It’s important that we now convert this strong qualifying into plenty of points tomorrow,” team boss Christian Horner concluded.
