Sebastian Vettel secured his second Formula 1 drivers championship with four races to spare by taking third place at the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka today. Jenson Button did everything within his power to extend the title contest by taking a well-deserved victory, but could not stop Vettel from collecting the single point that he needed to secure the title.
Renault put the ’embarrassing’ weekend in Singapore behind them today at Suzuka as Bruno Senna and Vitaly Petrov both secured top ten grid slots for the Japanese Grand Prix.
Stefano Domenicali has called on Formula 1 to do something about the growing trend in teams not sending their cars out for flying laps during Q3 after four drivers failed to set a time during the final part of qualifying at Suzuka today in order to save tyres for the race.
Lewis Hamilton has said that he is ‘happy’ with third place on the Japanese Grand Prix and said that his final attempt at qualifying was compromised by incidents at the final corner of his out-lap involving Mark Webber and Michael Schumacher.
Nico Rosberg was an early drop-out from qualifying in Suzuka after a hydraulics problem on his Mercedes and will start tomorrow’s Japanese Grand Prix on the back row of the grid.
Kamui Kobayashi entertained his home fans in qualifying at Suzuka today by setting the fastest time in Q1 and then securing tenth place on the Japanese Grand Prix grid.
Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery has said that they will continue to work with the teams and the FIA to ensure that drivers who get through to Q3 actually set a flying lap, rather than just sitting in the garage to save a set of tyres.
Vitantonio Liuzzi will go in tomorrow’s Japanese Grand Prix having completed just fourteen laps of the Suzuka track so far this weekend.
Rubens Barrichello thanked his Williams team for making a huge number of changes on his car before qualifying in Japan today, allowing him to take thirteenth place on the Suzuka grid.
Sebastian Vettel said that without the efforts of his team this weekend he would not have snatched pole position here in Suzuka.
Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta qualified eleventh and twelfth respectively for tomorrow’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka and both Force India drivers were relatively pleased with their qualifying performances.
Sebastian Vettel beats Jenson Button to pole position in Japan by just 0.009 seconds
Toro Rosso looked like potential contenders for Q3 places during qualifying today at Suzuka but a decision for neither car to complete another flying lap at the end of Q2 meant the team had to settle for both cars on Row 8 of the Japanese Grand Prix grid.
Both Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli were pleased with how qualifying went at Suzuka today as the two Team Lotus driver took eighteenth and nineteenth positions on the Japanese Grand Prix grid.
Red Bull faced their toughest qualifying challenge of the year today in Suzuka yet Sebastian Vettel managed to keep his team’s season-long streak of pole positions alive.
Jenson Button tops the timesheets in FP3 in Suzuka with a best lap of 1:31.255
Japanese Grand Prix 2011: Friday Practice 2 Times Pos No Driver Team Time Laps 1 4 Jenson Button McLaren 1:31.901 32…
