World championship leader Sebastian Vettel underlined his superiority by storming to pole position for today’s Chinese Grand Prix with the fastest lap ever recorded at the Shanghai circuit.
The 23-year-old’s Red Bull clocked a time of one minute 33.706 seconds, seven-tenths of a second quicker than the McLaren of Britain’s Jenson Button.
Button came in at one minute 34.421 seconds, with his teammate and fellow Briton Lewis Hamilton in third, in a time of one minute 34.463.
By taking pole, Vettel became the first Formula One driver since Michael Schumacher in 2004 to start at the front of the grid in the opening three races of the season.
But despite wins in this year’s opening two races in Australia and Malaysia, Vettel said he would be taking nothing for granted on the race day.
“Obviously we did it again but I try to remind myself and the team that every time is tough,” said Vettel. “It all starts from zero again on Sunday.
“It is not easy but people tend to forget that.”
Webber suffers
curse of KERS
The curse of Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) haunted Australian Mark Webber for the second weekend in a row as he will start 18th in today’s race.
Sidelined for most of the final practice when his car’s KERS system failed, as it had in Malaysia, Webber went out at the first hurdle in qualifying thanks to a wrong tyre choice.
“The tyres weren’t up to temperature so that second set was a bit more difficult for us. We snookered ourselves really,” said Webber.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 17th, 2011.
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