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Vettel pips Webber to pole in Hungary
31 July 2010 (15:53)
Sebastian Vettel © Gallo Images
Sebastian Vettel claimed a hat-trick of pole positions on Saturday after pipping Red Bull teammate Mark Webber in final qualifying for Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix.

This was Vettel's seventh pole of the season and 12th of his career and the Red Bull team have now taken 11 poles from the 12 available.

The 23-year-old German dominated from the get-go and clocked a time of 1 min 18.773sec on his penultimate lap, almost half a second quicker then Australian Webber.

The Red Bull duo were in a league of their own, again, almost a second quicker than their nearest rivals, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.

Fifth-placed Lewis Hamilton, McLaren's championship leader, said he could do nothing but "laugh" at the amazing pace of the Red Bulls.

"It's second in the middle sector and half a second in the final sector - I don't know whet they're doing but it's incredible, they're just so fast," the 2008 champion remarked.

Vettel dedicated his pole to his team for the phenomenal job they have done and hopes to have a more trouble-free start than he did in Germany last weekend.

"I said on the radio to the boys 'this is your moment'. I said 'you built this wonderful car'. It was a pleasure to drive.

"This circuit suits us. You need to know the track but you need to have the car. The track suits our car so we are little bit quicker than the rest. We found the problem from last week that made the bad start so hopefully we can have a normal start tomorrow."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner reflected: "This was probably our most dominant qualifying of the year."

Since the Hungaroring is notoriously difficult to overtake around, Alonso is hoping that a good start on Sunday will help put him in contention with the high-flying Red Bulls.

"We did our job which is to be best of the rest." he said.

"Hopefully tomorrow we can make it a more difficult race for them (Red Bull) because so far this weekend it has been too easy.

"The start is important, it is difficult to overtake - strategy will be important but we know the start will be 60-70 percent of the race."

German Nico Rosberg was sixth quickest for Mercedes followed by Russian Vitaly Petrov who out-qualified his Renault teammate Pole Robert Kubica for the first time this season.

Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa of Sauber will start in ninth ahead of Williams driver Nico Hulkenberg in tenth.

Vettel led the Red Bull assault in the Q1 opening mini-session which saw Japanese Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber eliminated along with the three new teams.

Kobayashi appeared to have been held up by Bruno Senna of Hispania on his final flying lap and was pipped to the 17th fastest time in the final minute of the session by Force India's Adrian Sutil.

That meant he joined Timo Glock of Virgin, Lotus drivers Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli, Lucas Di Grassi in the second Virgin and Senna ahead of his Hispania team-mate Sakon Yamamoto.

McLaren's worst fears were realised in Q2 when their defending drivers' world champion Jenson Button failed to make the top ten.

Button will start in 11th place on Sunday ahead of Rubens Barrichello in the second Williams, Sutil, German Michael Schumacher in the second Mercedes, Sebastien Buemi of Toro Rosso, Vitantonio Liuzzi in the second Force India, and Jaime Alguersuari in the second Toro Rosso.

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© Sapa - AFP
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