Vettel beats Webber to Melbourne pole (Australian Grand Prix qualifying)
Sebastian Vettel heads a Red Bull one-two at Melbourne
Sebastian Vettel denied team mate Mark Webber a pole position start in front of his home crowd at Melbourne.
Vettel edged his team mate by less than a tenth of a second in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.
But the biggest surprise of the session was Lewis Hamilton failing to make it into the top ten.
Q1
With 24 cars on-track at once teams were working overtime on the pit wall to get their drivers onto clear parts of the track to get their laps in.
The Red Bulls, McLarens and Fernando Alonso all made it through into Q2 by making just one run. And the rapid RB6s managed it without having to use the soft tyres.
The three new cars took up their already customary places in the bottom six, Lotus ahead of Virgin and of HRT. Jarno Trulli’s performance was hindered by a broken seat.
Sebastien Buemi escaped the bottom seven in the dying stages, dropping Renault’s Vitaly Petrov out of qualifying. The Russian driver might have made it into Q2 but for a wild moment in the high-speed turn 11 and 12 chicane.
Q2
After both McLarens had made it into Q2 with a single run it was a surprise to see Lewis Hamilton fail to progress any further.
He did two efforts on the soft tyres he was 11th, 0.062s behind Robert Kubica. Hamilton’s team mate Jenson Button made it through, courtesy of his first time on the soft tyres, and he did his second run on the hard compound after that.
Ferrari also sent Alonso out on the hard tyres for his second run after going fast enough on his first attempt to guarantee he would get through to Q3.
Webber was fastest earlier in Q2 but Vettel showed his pace with a late lap that beat Webber’s time.
Rubens Barrichello took Williams into the final part of qualifying, beating team mate Nico Hülkenberg by seven tenths of a second.
Q3
Webber was quickest to begin with, beating Alonso’s time to head the field. But Vettel went faster in the first two sectors and clung on through a wild final sector to snatch provisional pole position from Webber.
They had enough time for an extra set of runs but there were no significant improvements. Webber beat Vettel in the first and third sectors but couldn’t beat Vettel’s time in the middle part of the lap.
Nor were there many changes further down the order. The Mercedes drivers were the only ones to try a run on hard tyres at the end of the session but neither driver improved their time.
Felipe Massa was the only driver to move up the order, taking fifth place some seven tenths of a second slower than Alonso.
Vettel described his pole lap as being “spot on everywhere – until I reached the last three corners”. The gap between the Red Bull drivers may be much smaller than it was at Bahrain, but it’s still Vettel who holds the upper hand.
Overall times
| Pos. | # | Driver | Car | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
| 1 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1’24.774 | 1’24.096 | 1’23.919 |
| 2 | 6 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1’25.286 | 1’24.276 | 1’24.035 |
| 3 | 8 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’25.082 | 1’24.335 | 1’24.111 |
| 4 | 1 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’24.897 | 1’24.531 | 1’24.675 |
| 5 | 7 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1’25.548 | 1’25.010 | 1’24.837 |
| 6 | 4 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’24.788 | 1’24.788 | 1’24.884 |
| 7 | 3 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1’25.351 | 1’24.871 | 1’24.927 |
| 8 | 9 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 1’25.702 | 1’25.085 | 1’25.217 |
| 9 | 11 | Robert Kubica | Renault | 1’25.588 | 1’25.122 | 1’25.372 |
| 10 | 14 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1’25.504 | 1’25.046 | 1’26.036 |
| 11 | 2 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’25.046 | 1’25.184 | |
| 12 | 16 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’26.061 | 1’25.638 | |
| 13 | 15 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India-Mercedes | 1’26.170 | 1’25.743 | |
| 14 | 22 | Pedro de la Rosa | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’26.089 | 1’25.747 | |
| 15 | 10 | Nico Hülkenberg | Williams-Cosworth | 1’25.866 | 1’25.748 | |
| 16 | 23 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’26.251 | 1’25.777 | |
| 17 | 17 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’26.095 | 1’26.089 | |
| 18 | 12 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1’26.471 | ||
| 19 | 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Cosworth | 1’28.797 | ||
| 20 | 18 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Cosworth | 1’29.111 | ||
| 21 | 24 | Timo Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’29.592 | ||
| 22 | 25 | Lucas di Grassi | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’30.185 | ||
| 23 | 21 | Bruno Senna | HRT-Cosworth | 1’30.526 | ||
| 24 | 20 | Karun Chandhok | HRT-Cosworth | 1’30.613 |
2010 Australian Grand Prix
- 2010 Australian Grand Prix – the complete F1 Fanatic review
- Australian GP team-by-team analysis
- 2010 Australian Grand Prix stats and facts
- Melbourne was a blast but F1′s aero problem remains (Australian GP analysis)
- Alonso fourth, Schumacher tenth in their battle from the back in Melbourne
- Australian Grand Prix fastest laps
- Australian Grand Prix in pictures
- Unreliability costs Vettel another win
- Hamilton fumes after strategy mistake
- Button wins thrilling Australian GP
- Australian Grand Prix result
- F1 championship points after Australia
- Rate the race: Australia
- Australian Grand Prix live blog
- Vettel looks hard to beat at Melbourne (Australian GP pre-race analysis)
- Australian GP qualifying in pictures
- A bad weekend gets worse for Hamilton
- Vettel beats Webber to Melbourne pole (Australian Grand Prix qualifying)
- 2010 Australian Grand Prix grid
- Australian Grand Prix qualifying live blog
- Webber fastest at home in final practice
- Australian Grand Prix practice 3 live blog
- Make your Australian Grand Prix predictions now to win F1 prizes
- Australian Grand Prix practice in pictures
- Australian GP practice two analysis
- McLaren on top after wet second practice
- Australian Grand Prix practice 2 live blog
- Australian GP practice one analysis
- Kubica quickest in disrupted first practice
- Australian Grand Prix practice 1 live blog
- Drivers on duty in Melbourne (Pictures)
- 2010 Australian Grand Prix – The F1 Fanatic unofficial race programme
- Di Resta excited ahead of Force India debut
- 2010 Australian Grand Prix preview
- Low chance of rain at Melbourne
- Australian Grand Prix live TV Times
LC Coelho said on 27th March 2010, 16:32
So if I got it right all drivers from Q3 are going to start the race on soft tyres, right?
Stefan said on 27th March 2010, 17:14
I am not surprised by the top 3 but I didn’t expect a pole record time by Vettel, we could’ve expect a McLaren on 4th and a Mercedes on 6th and 7th. Massa didn’t do bad, Albert Park isn’t his favourite track (only finished twice out of seven).
The biggest surprise is Barrichello who did an awesome job qualifying 8th in front of Kubica and Sutil, which I reckon to be faster than the Williams. Ofcourse Hamilton’s fail to pass Q2 is also a surprise for me, although he had some off-track troubles.
Buemi did very well on 12th holding off Liuzzi, perhaps Di Resta will debut this year? The others didn’t really surprise me, only Hülkenberg a bit down on 15th but he’s a rookie we can’t claim miracles.
bob80 said on 27th March 2010, 18:24
Renault was just slow today, Petrov failed to go out from Q1 even with soft tyres and Kubica said he has extracted everything form his car during qualifying. Is Renault really heading in right direction or they just didn’t get optimal setup for this track?
Stefan said on 27th March 2010, 17:33
I don’t agree on the Petrov critics, he did his fastest lap in Q1. At the end it wasn’t enough by 0.220 of a second, but can you blame him?
If you compare his time with Kubica’s 1:25.588 in Q1 you probably would. But Petrov didn’t test as much as Kubica, and when Petrov tested it was mostly in wet conditions. Besides I don’t think Renault is focusing on Petrov, if the FIA allowed having one car/driver in the championship they’d probably consider it.
Dennis said on 27th March 2010, 17:58
This proves the RBR is definetly the fastest car of the field, closely followed by the Ferrari. I think Massa’s performance was quite disappointing, he got trashed by Alonso here (7 tenths is quite a difference) ánd he was slower than Button. Hamilton’s performance was the worst of the top teams though. 11th! Perhaps he’s trying out the tyre-rule? He can start on new tyres and I for one wouldn’t be surprised if he was at least in 8th position before the pitstops. Now Schumacher again beaten by Rosberg, it already gets under his skin a bit since he was critisizing Hamilton and Alonso for being in his way, which might be, but it was very crowded on track anyway!
My first prediction (Vettel on pole) was correct! (admittedly, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist or have Nostradamus-like prediction gifsts to see that one coming, but it’s nice for me anyway, so bite me :p) Now let’s see how the other prediction is going to go. I think Alonso will pass Vettel and Webber near after about 70% of the race, the Ferrari is just more consistent, the RBR is fast over one lap but they can’t keep that pace up all race long where the Ferrari can. I don’t think Hamilton will be 4th though.. Placed a bet on the wrong McClaren!
F1silverarrows said on 27th March 2010, 18:00
just imagine if this was the old days with it being a 2 team race Ferrari vs Mclaren it wouldn’t be so bad, but now Red Bull are equal to the top teams, Mercedes are back and Force India are starting to make a shout for points, you have to expect the drop zone for a poor drive to be alot bigger then previous years.
hamilton would be 6th atm if red bull, Force india and mercedes didn’t exsist and nobody would of said anything about him being on the 3rd row, just: “he has a good chance to get podium yack yack he can do it”.
what you really should be saying is: “hamilton is at a respectful 11th place”
wasiF1 said on 28th March 2010, 2:32
What a lap by Vettel.
BRAVO
Ronman said on 29th March 2010, 7:58
Form my view on the TV, qualifying was a mess, and even with live timing was very confusing to follow. And i’m a seasoned viewer…
i think with that many cars on track in Q1, Quali should be reformatted. nothing too drastic. just get back to the one hour 12 flying lap limit of the old days…