Quantcast

Red Bull USA GP Qualifying Report


By Ian Lockwood
November 17 2013

Infiniti Red Bull Racing landed its fifth front-row lock-out of the season and the team’s 23rd in total as Sebastian Vettel narrowly took pole position for tomorrow’s United States Grand Prix ahead of Mark Webber.

The pair duelled for the top spot in qualifying, while nearest rival Romain Grosjean took third seventh tenths of a second behind Mark.

Both Seb and Mark eased through the first two segments. Mark ended Q1 in a comfortable fourth place, with Seb four places further back. In Q2 they upped the pace to take the top two positions on the timesheet, with Sebastian out in front by three tenths of a second.

Mark responded to that in fine style. With his first run in Q3 the Aussie logged a lap of 1:36.699, the quickest time of the whole weekend up to that point. Seb took P2 with his first run and the pair retired to the garage to plan their final runs. When they emerged it looked like Mark had the pace to secure his third pole in four races. He shaved two tenths off his first run to set a benchmark of 1:36.441, going purple in the first two sectors.

Seb wasn't to be denied a 44th career pole position, however. Slightly slower than his team-mate in the first two sectors, he found pace in the final third of the lap. Vettel crossed the line just a tenth ahead of the Australian.

"It's obviously great for the team to have both cars on the front row for tomorrow," he said. "I wasn't that happy with my first run in Q3, but I think I had a solid run at the end which was enough. It was very close with Mark, he seemed to get closer and closer as the weekend went on, so fortunately I was just able to stay ahead. I think he might have had a mistake on his final run. I'm very happy with pole position today, I like this place and the circuit and I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It's important to start on the clean side."

Mark, meanwhile, admitted he had made an error in his final sector and that without that perhaps pole would have been his.

"The first part of my final lap was very good, I was happy with that, but I didn't quite get Turns 19 and 20; if I'd done what I did there initially in Q3, it would probably have been enough, but I tried to squeeze a bit more out and it's easy to unload the car a bit too much in these conditions," he said. "Sometimes you're happy and think you've given your best, but today it slipped through the fingers. Well done to Seb, he put the three sectors together and I put two and a half together. I just dropped it in the last sector and it's not satisfying when you do that, but I'm still pretty happy with second."

 

The teams' fifth front-row lock-out of the season was the ideal birthday present for Team Principal Christian Horner. "A fantastic performance from both drivers today in what was a really exciting Q3," he said. "It yo-yoed between Mark and Sebastian trading fastest sectors and in the end Sebastian, by the smallest of margins, managed to achieve the pole and a team front row lock out, with Mark joining him alongside. It was a great team performance and a great 40th birthday present!"

With Grosjean qualifying at the front of row two, fourth place was taken by Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg. Row three is set to be filled by Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton and sixth-placed Fernando Alonso of Ferrari.

Sergio Perez put in a good performance for McLaren to claim seventh on the grid ahead of Heikki Kovalainen who delivered a fine lap to take eighth place on his return to competitive F1 running for the first time since last year's Brazilian GP. Fellow Finn Valtteri Bottas also had a good outing, qualifying ninth for Williams, his first top 10 start since the Canadian GP in June. Esteban Gutierrez was 10th in the second Sauber.

View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.

Bookmark or share this story with:

Red Bull USA GP Qualifying Report
Discussion started by Racing Bulls , 17/11/2013 14:36
Racing Bulls
17/11/2013 14:36
What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.

Your Name: 
Subject: 
We record all IP addresses on the Sportnetwork message boards which may be required by the authorities in case of defamatory or abusive comment. We seek to monitor the Message Boards at regular intervals. We do not associate Sportnetwork with any of the comments and do not take responsibility for any statements or opinions expressed on the Message Boards. If you have any cause for concern over any material posted here please let us know as soon as possible by e-mailing abuse@sportnetwork.net