F1 – Qualifying Report: Korea

Sebastian Vettel grabbed his fourth consecutive pole position and sixth of the season to qualify at the front of the grid for tomorrow’s Korean Grand Prix. It was a comfortable and fairly anti-climactic end to qualifying for the three-time world champion, whose first flying lap was enough to see him set the fastest time. Lewis Hamilton, who topped both Friday practice sessions, had to settle for second place, while Vettel’s team mate Mark Webber was third fastest but will start from thirteenth on the grid due to a ten-place grid penalty for accumulating three reprimands this season.

Elsewhere in the top ten, Romain Grosjean put together a good lap to claim fourth place ahead of the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg, while his team mate Kimi Raikkonen could only manage tenth, 1.3 seconds down on the Frenchman’s time due to an error in his only flying lap. All drivers from Grosjean down to thirteenth-placed Ricciardo will be moved up a place on the grid thanks to Webber falling back.

It was a good session for the Sauber drivers, with Hulkenberg and Gutierrez claiming eighth and ninth positions respectively, just behind the Ferraris of Alonso and Massa.

Scot Paul di Resta made it out of Q1 by the skin of his teeth, with Marussia driver Jules Bianchi judged to have held him up near the end of his hot lap. Bianchi has been given a three-place grid penalty and a reprimand, which sees him start at the back of the grid. Di Resta went on to Q2 but was unable to make it into the top ten, instead having to settle for 15th place on the grid. Nevertheless, the Force India driver is still confident that he will be able to get into a points-scoring position during the race. He said:-  “We were not fully optimised for qualifying because we’ve been focusing more on our race pace as we did in Singapore. Hopefully that will pay off for us tomorrow because our long run performance and tyre wear yesterday appeared to be very good. So I think we’ve got a good race car, possibly better than some of the cars around us, and points will be the target.”

Full Qualifying Results

1. Vettel (1:37.202)

2. Hamilton (+0.218)

3. Webber (+0.262)*

4. Grosjean (+0.329)

5. Rosberg (+0.477)

6. Alonso (+0.836)

7. Massa (+1.021)

8. Hulkenberg (+1.035)

9. Gutierrez (+1.203)

10. Raikkonen (+1.620)

11. Perez (Q2)

12. Button (Q2)

13. Ricciardo (Q2)

14. Sutil (Q2)

15. Di Resta (Q2)

16. Vergne (Q2)

17. Bottas (Q3)

18. Maldonado (Q3)

19. Pic (Q3)

20. Van der Garde (Q3)

21. Bianchi (Q3)**

22. Chilton (Q3)

*10-place grid penalty, will start 13th

**3-place grid penalty, will start 22nd