Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel kept the pulse in his slim Formula One championship campaign by taking pole position Saturday for the Japanese Grand Prix.
On an incident-strewn day of many crashes, with qualifying punctuated by a series of red flags to clear debris, Vettel led qualifiers with a time of 1 minute, 32.160 seconds.
Toyota’s Jarno Trulli will start from second spot on the grid in Sunday’s race, with McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Force India’s Adrian Sutil on the second row. The Canadian Press
Vettel admitted it was a difficult session with all the delays and accidents but was pleased to secure his place at the front of the grid.
“I did my best not to get distracted today; it was a strange session with a lot of incidents. The most important thing is that all the drivers are okay,” he said in the post-qualifying press conference.
“With three races to go, it’s quite a big gap (to Button), so all we can do is race and try to win and we are in the best starting position. We will see. It’s a long race, tough on the tyres and tough on the drivers.” CNN International
POS DRIVER ENTRANT TIME 1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 01:32.2 2 Jarno Trulli Toyota 01:32.2 3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 01:32.4 4 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 01:32.5 5 Rubens Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes 01:32.7 6 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 01:32.9 7 Jenson Button Brawn-Mercedes 01:33.0 8 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 01:33.0 9 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes No Time 10 Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari No Time 11 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 01:31.5 12 Fernando Alonso Renault 01:31.6 13 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber 01:32.3 14 Timo Glock Toyota No Time 15 Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari No Time 16 Giancarlo Fisichella Ferrari 01:31.7 17 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 01:31.7 18 Romain Grosjean Renault 01:32.1 19 Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 01:32.1 20 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault No Time
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