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Vettel on pole as Red Bull crushes rivals

Red Bull continued its domination of the British Grand Prix weekend as Sebastian Vettel led Mark Webber in a seemingly easy front row sweep

And while Red Bull proved unstoppable, its main title rival McLaren had a very tough session - with Lewis Hamilton fourth and reigning champion Jenson Button a disastrous 14th.

The latter described his car as 'undriveable', and was a lost to explain why its grip had suddenly disappeared in Q2, leaving him on row seven.

Vettel and Webber had been first and second in Q1, swapped places in Q2, and then led their rivals by just over 0.7 seconds after their first Q3 runs put them comfortably first and second, Vettel just ahead.

That was how they stayed, as Webber could not quite improve on his 1m29.758s at the end, whereas Vettel found a little more time and got his pole mark down to 1m29.615s.

Fernando Alonso was best of the rest in third for Ferrari, despite being frustrated to be caught behind Rubens Barrichello's Williams on his last Q3 run. Nevertheless, he was still able to hold off Hamilton.

Mercedes got both cars back in the top ten, Nico Rosberg taking fifth place - 0.8s and five places ahead of team-mate Michael Schumacher.

Renault's Robert Kubica will join Rosberg on row three, followed by Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari, Barrichello, and the impressive Pedro de la Rosa (Sauber) - who produced the best qualifying form of his comeback so far.

Button aside, there were few surprises among the drivers failing to make the top ten, except perhaps Force India's second straight Q2 elimination. Adrian Sutil narrowly missed out in 11th, while Tonio Liuzzi was 15th - and may yet face questions over impeding 13th-place qualifier Nico Hulkenberg's Williams.

Liuzzi had earlier edged though to Q2 with his last lap having briefly looked set for a Q1 departure. His improvement pushed Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari outside the cut in 18th.

Lotus's Heikki Kovalainen and Virgin's Timo Glock had a close battle for the top spot among the new teams, eventually won by the Finn again - although the gap up to the established midfield was back up to 2s.

Returnee Sakon Yamamoto will unsurprisingly start last for Hispania, though he was within a respectable 0.4s of team-mate Karun Chandhok.


Pos  Driver         Team                   Q1        Q2        Q3       
 1.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault       1:30.841  1:30.480  1:29.615
 2.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault       1:30.858  1:30.114  1:29.758
 3.  Alonso         Ferrari                1:30.997  1:30.700  1:30.426
 4.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes       1:31.297  1:31.118  1:30.556
 5.  Rosberg        Mercedes               1:31.626  1:31.085  1:30.625
 6.  Kubica         Renault                1:31.680  1:31.344  1:31.040
 7.  Massa          Ferrari                1:31.313  1:31.010  1:31.172
 8.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1:31.424  1:31.126  1:31.175
 9.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari         1:31.533  1:31.327  1:31.274
10.  Schumacher     Mercedes               1:32.058  1:31.022  1:31.430
11.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1:31.109  1:31.399
12.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari         1:31.851  1:31.421
13.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth      1:32.144  1:31.635
14.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1:31.435  1:31.699
15.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes   1:32.226  1:31.708
16.  Petrov         Renault                1:31.638  1:31.796
17.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:31.901  1:32.012
18.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:32.430
19.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth         1:34.405
20.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth        1:34.775
21.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth         1:34.864
22.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth        1:35.212
23.  Chandhok       HRT-Cosworth           1:36.576
24.  Yamamoto       HRT-Cosworth           1:36.968

All Timing Unofficial

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