Webber beats Vettel to pole in Spain

Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton after Spanish GP qualifying

Mark Webber took pole position ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, beating his team-mate Sebastian Vettel, with Lewis Hamilton in third. Here is the breakdown of what happened:

Q1

The Red Bulls of Vettel and Webber waited for nearly 15 minutes before going out, but were still able to get comfortably into Q2. Heikki Kovalainen was the first out, folowed by the two Ferraris. The cars were much slower at the start of Q1, as a rain shower last night had washed away much of the grip that the track had.

It seemed as if Pedro de la Rosa would be knocked out with the new teams, but he pulled out a good lap at the end to get sixth. This left Rubens Barrichello in the drop zone, and he was unable to improve on his previous lap time. It was a big surprise, and an indicator that the Williams car direly needs more improvements.

Drivers knocked out in Q1:

18) Rubens Barrichello

19) Jarno Trulli

20) Heikki Kovalainen

21) Timo Glock

22) Lucas di Grassi

23) Karun Chandhok

24) Bruno Senna

Q2

Everyone knew that Q2 was going to be extremely close, after the tight lap times in the midfield in Q1. The Red Bulls surprised many by going out on the harder tyres first, and they set fast laps instantly, going 1st and 2nd within 5 minutes. Nobody, even on the soft tyres, seemed to be able to keep up.

Vitantonio Liuzzi was once again slower than his team-mate Sutil, and never improved on his initial time, finishing 17th. Once the Red Bulls switched to the softer tyres, they were even faster again, with Webber getting a 1.20.655 ahead of Vettel. Kamui Kobayashi did very well at the end of Q2 to get himself into 8th position. Vitaly Petrov only got 14th, and with his grid penalty, he will start 19th on the grid.

Nico Hulkenberg qualified 13th, well ahead of team-mate Barrichello. The Toro Rosso cars never really impressed, getting 15th and 16th respectively. Adrian Sutil dissapointed slightly by failing to get into Q3.

Drivers knocked out in Q2:

11) Adrian Sutil

12) Pedro de la Rosa

13) Nico Hulkenberg

14) Vitaly Petrov

15) Sebastien Buemi

16) Jaime Alguersuari

17) Vitantonio Liuzzi

Q3

Robert Kubica was the first out, on the softer tyres. However, Fernando Alonso drove out of his pit box, straight into the path of Nico Rosberg. Nico just about avoided a collision, and it remains to be seen whether the Spaniard will receive a penalty, though Rosberg cartainly thought so.

The McLarens set the initial pace, with Hamilton leading Button by two tenths. However, Sebastian Vettel completely blitzed their times, beating them by an entire second, with Webber then finding a further tenth. Immidiately, with 4 minutes remaining, most of the field pitted, before their final runs. This was except Kamui Kobayashi, who had the entire track to himself, and had soft tyres, although he only got 7th.

In the final minutes, Vettel and Webber both set absolutely perfect first and second sectors. But, Mark once again pipped Sebastian by one tenth of a second to take pole position. Lewis Hamilton’s final lap beat Fernando Alonso to third place, while Jenson Button got fifth. Michael Schumacher dissapointed slightly with 6th, although he beat his team-mate by two hundreths of a second.

Full qualifying times from today:

	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1.21.412	1.20.655	1.19.995
2	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1.21.680	1.20.722	1.20.101
3	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1.21.723	1.21.415	1.20.829
4	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1.21.957	1.21.549	1.20.937
5	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1.21.915	1.21.168	1.20.991
6	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1.22.528	1.21.557	1.21.294
7	Robert Kubica	Renault	1.22.488	1.21.599	1.21.353
8	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1.22.419	1.21.867	1.21.408
9	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1.22.564	1.21.841	1.21.585
10	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1.22.577	1.21.725	1.21.984
11	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1.22.628	1.21.985
12	Pedro de la Rosa	Sauber-Ferrari	1.22.211	1.22.026
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Williams-Cosworth	1.22.857	1.22.131
14	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1.22.976	1.22.139
15	Sebastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1.22.699	1.22.191
16	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1.22.593	1.22.207
17	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	1.23.084	1.22.854
18	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1.23.125
19	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Cosworth	1.24.674
20	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Cosworth	1.24.748
21	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	1.25.475
22	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin-Cosworth	1.25.566
23	Karun Chandhok	HRT-Cosworth	1.26.750
24	Bruno Senna	HRT-Cosworth	1.27.122