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Red Bull Quali Report


By Ian Lockwood
March 29 2014

Sebastian Vettel narrowly missed out on the 46th pole position of his career, as he was edged of the premier grid spot for the tomorrow’s Malaysian Grand Prix by just five hundredths of a second.

Lewis Hamilton will start from the front for the second race in a row but in a rain-hit session that was also characterised by a Q1 technical scare for Seb, the defending champion admitted he was happy with his afternoon's work, especially as he feels he may have an advantage in starting from the clean side of the grid.

"It was very close, maybe too close, as if you look at the margin it was possible to go faster, but then if Lewis would have had another chance he would have improved also so, would should, could, at the end of the day it's good to be on the front row and it should be the good side of the grid for tomorrow – it depends on how our start is, but I'm happy with the result.

"My heartbeat was rising very quickly in Q1 when we realised there was an issue [with the car]," he added of the energy store glitch that necessitated an unscheduled trip back to pit lane just as a brief lull in the torrential rain that had caused qualifying to be delayed by 50 minutes gave way to more a further downpour.

"We came in and restarted the car, which seemed to solve the problem and after that it was fine," said Seb. "It was good to go out and get another feel for the car in the wet conditions."

There were no recurrences of the early problem and Seb was able to take the fight to the previously dominant Mercedes. He finished the second segment in second behind Hamilton and ahead of Rosberg and in the final top-10 shootout was able to repeat the performance, finished ahead of Mercedes' Rosberg who seemed to struggle on the full wet tyres needed to cope with the worsening conditions in Q3.

Daniel Ricciardo had an equally eventful afternoon. The Aussie sailed through Q1 in sixth place and in the second 15-minute segment improved to fourth. Daniel also complained that in the segment he had been blocked by Williams' Valtteri Bottas. The Finn was later handed a three-place grid penalty by the race stewards.

In the final segment Daniel couldn't make any more headway, however, and later admitted that he hadn't been at his best in the final 12 minutes of the hour.

"When it rains here, it definitely pours and the weather was our biggest challenge today," said Dan. "Finding space on the track can be tough and the visibility is so bad, the spray comes from hundreds of metres away, so just getting some clean road is something you really have to try and take care of. I was a bit off in Q3, so I've got to try and understand why, but nonetheless I think top five is not too bad, considering the conditions.

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Red Bull Quali Report
Discussion started by Racing Bulls , 29/03/2014 16:16
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