Unstoppable Vettel on pole again in Canada
2011 Canadian GP qualifying
Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, Montreal, 2011
Sebastian Vettel continued his domination of the 2011 season with his sixth pole position of the year in Canada.
The Red Bull driver came under pressure from the Ferraris, with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa behind him on the grid.
McLaren could do no better than the third row of the grid.
Q1
A busy start to qualifying saw drivers having to jockey for position on a crowded track.
It also saw a desperate battle among the minor men to beat the 107% time.
Fernando Alonso set a fastest lap of 1’13.822, putting the cut-off limit at 1’18.989.
Two drivers were outside the mark: Narain Karthikeyan and Jerome D’Ambrosio. Karthikeyan made it through – by four-tenths of a second – with a late improvement.
D’Ambrosio was also on course to better his time before slowing in the final sector. He did improve his time later on but fell short of the target time by half a second.
The HRTs, Virgins and Lotuses were eliminated as usual, though Jarno Trulli out-qualified Heikki Kovalainen for thie first time this year.
The other car which failed to make the cut was the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari.
Drivers eliminated in Q1
| 18 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’16.294 |
| 19 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Renault | 1’16.745 |
| 20 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Renault | 1’16.786 |
| 21 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | HRT-Cosworth | 1’18.424 |
| 22 | Timo Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’18.537 |
| 23 | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT-Cosworth | 1’18.574 |
| 24 | Jerome d’Ambrosio | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’19.414 |
Q2
All the front-runners started the second session on super-soft tyres. Unusually, nine of them felt safe enough to only do one run – even Michael Schumacher, eighth, and Vitaly Petrov, ninth, stayed in the pits.
The gamble paid off, as none of the other eight cars improved their times by enough to displace them. Nick Heidfeld took the final place in the top ten with a lap of 1’14.467.
Paul di Resta took 11th, half a second quicker than his team mate.
Kamui Kobayashi ran off the track at turn eight and ended up 13th behind Pastor Maldonado.
The Williams driver out-qualified his team mate Rubens Barrichello.
Drivers eliminated in Q2
| 11 | Paul di Resta | Force India-Mercedes | 1’14.752 |
| 12 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams-Cosworth | 1’15.043 |
| 13 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’15.285 |
| 14 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1’15.287 |
| 15 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’15.334 |
| 16 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 1’15.361 |
| 17 | Pedro de la Rosa | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’15.587 |
Q3
Sebastian Vettel was quickest to begin with in Q3 with the two Ferraris on his tail, a few tenths away.
Ferrari elected to do “racing” style pit stops in the session in order to get the cars back on track as quickly as possible, expecting to find more time on the super-softs.
The red cars held their positions but swapped order – Alonso taking the front row spot off Massa.
Webber took fourth and team principal Christian Horner confirmed afterwards his KERS had not been working during the session.
Lewis Hamilton took fifth – the first time he has failed to take pole position in Canada – with Nico Rosberg beating Jenson Button to sixth.
Top ten in Q3
| 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1’13.014 |
| 2 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’13.199 |
| 3 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1’13.217 |
| 4 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1’13.429 |
| 5 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’13.565 |
| 6 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’13.814 |
| 7 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’13.838 |
| 8 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1’13.864 |
| 9 | Nick Heidfeld | Renault | 1’14.062 |
| 10 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1’14.085 |
2011 Canadian Grand Prix
- Technical review: 2011 Canadian Grand Prix
- 2011 Canadian Grand Prix: complete race weekend review
- Vote for your Canadian GP driver of the weekend
- McLaren: Button makes amends for collision with stunning win
- Red Bull: Vettel finally cracks under pressure
- Ferrari: Alonso rues ‘bad luck’ after retiring
- Mercedes: Schumacher misses out on podium
- Sauber: Kobayashi slips from second to seventh
- Renault: Heidfeld crash leaves Petrov fifth
- Williams: Barrichello in points, Maldonado crashes
Image © Red Bull/Getty images
Calum said on 11th June 2011, 22:52
There’s no point in grumbling, the class of the field is dominating this season.
It’s 2010 with RedBull being reliable enough to race.
mash26 said on 11th June 2011, 23:34
So Mansell took 14 pole positions in ’92 and Prost took 13 the next year. How many are willing to bet Seb’ll make it 15??
How many races do you think he’ll win?? 9? 10? 11? A driver hasn’t won more than 7 in a single year since 2004!
I’m no fan but its time someone took atleast 8.
alex said on 12th June 2011, 0:46
how many poles Schumacher took in 02 and 04? Does anyone know?
rfs said on 12th June 2011, 1:45
Just check wikipedia.
Schumacher got 7 poles in 2002, and 8 in 2004. Not that many, really.
Eastman said on 11th June 2011, 23:40
It may have been boring for the BBC broadcast team desperate for McLaren victories, but at the track it was amazing.
The people around me couldn’t get over the pace of the cars. Five men beat the previous track record today. That’s a pretty amazing session.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 11th June 2011, 23:47
The lap record for the race is 1’13.622, but the fastest time seen in qualifying is a 1’12.275, which no-one beat today.
mvi said on 11th June 2011, 23:55
And that fastest qualifying was set by Ralf Schumacher!
Forcer said on 12th June 2011, 1:31
di Resta just missed Q3 again. OOPS…but positive is Force India will surely get nice points in Indian GP it seems.
wasiF1 (@wasif1) said on 12th June 2011, 2:40
Probably the best qualifying session of the season, all bets were on for this race as who will be P1.Good to see Massa back on charge I hope from here onward he find his rhythm.
rayan said on 12th June 2011, 4:37
one doubt guys….wat will happen when ferrari wear the harder tyres,,,which is not suiting the italian car for some reason…mean during tommorow s race
Owen said on 12th June 2011, 5:12
Webber no KERS. Typical Marko.
Pink Pirelli said on 12th June 2011, 10:03
I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but really? Webber has unreliable KERS again? And yet Vettel’s works perfectly. Amazing how they can get one to work and not the other…
Varun said on 12th June 2011, 7:24
Rosberg proved to be dissapointing.
J said on 12th June 2011, 16:57
I hope by that you mean “Mercedes” proved to be disappointing. I’d be inclined to believe that he and Schumacher came close to the limit of that car in those conditions. They were less than a tenth apart.
Marauder said on 12th June 2011, 13:14
I’m going to wait until after the rule change @ Silverstone comes along before I give up on watching the rest of this season.
We will see how much the top teams (including you, RB) will suffer in performance.
J said on 12th June 2011, 16:54
Keith, do you have any data to suggest that Webber might have snatched pole if he’d had KERS operating? I’m curious as to what it’s worth around this circuit. I’m not sure if the long straights increase or decrease its effectiveness (given that they also have DRS). It’s probably still around 3 to 5 tenths. Let us know what you think?