In the knowledge that it would take something very special to beat him, team-mate Mark Webber qualified fourth in Q3 on medium tyres, meaning he will start the race on the harder compound that will last a lot longer in the opening stint. The hope from his side of the garage is that it will give him an advantage over the cars in front as Red Bull has been struggling with front tyre wear on the softs all weekend.
Sebastian Vettel said: "The car felt good all weekend and it just got better as the track improved. The car was amazing; it’s a great circuit, I really like the flow of it, especially around the middle sector with the high speed corners. If the car behaves the way you want it to through that section then you’re always then going to enjoy it, as we did today. It’s a great result for the team; Mark is on a different strategy, so we’ll see what the race brings tomorrow. We have been getting a lot of questions about the Championship this weekend, but we’ll keep doing what we’ve done in the past, just focusing on every single step – we won’t change that for tomorrow, or the next couple of races. We’ve worked hard to get here and tomorrow is a long race. With the strategy, I think it’s always tricky do the right thing, but we have a good package so we should be in good shape."
Nico Rosberg, fron row starter: "I’m pleased because the aim this weekend was to be best of the rest. Second place is a great place to start. It’s been a demanding weekend. We went wild with the set up on Friday to try and find a few tenths and luckily we found it. So it’s cool. We looked at both strategies and we think the soft is the better one."
Lewis Hamilton, 3-rd fastest driver today: "It’s been a tough weekend, congratulations to Sebastian he showed serious pace. We have been pushing and we wanted to get a great result this weekend. I was surprised to be where we are. I did have some traffic through Turn 8 and 9 and it didn’t help. It might have been a Red Bull but we didn’t lose too much time."
P. DRIVER TEAM TIME GAP
1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1:24.119
2. Nico Rosberg Mercedes AMG 1:24.871 + 0.752
3. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes AMG 1:24.941 + 0.822
4. Mark Webber Red Bull 1:25.047 + 0.928
5. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:25.201 + 1.082
6. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus 1:25.248 + 1.129
7. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber 1:25.334 + 1.215
8. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:25.826 + 1.707
9. Sergio Perez McLaren 1:26.153 + 2.034
10. Jenson Button McLaren 1:26.487 + 2.368
Q2 fastest time: Sebastian Vettel 1:31.290 Gap
11. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:25.519 + 0.951
12. Paul di Resta Force India 1:25.711 + 1.143
13. Adrian Sutil Force India 1:25.740 + 1.172
14. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:25.798 + 1.230
15. Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:26.134 + 1.566
16. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:26.336 + 1.768
Q1 fastest time: Romain Grosjean 1:31.824 Gap
17. Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:26.577 + 1.003
18. Pastor Maldonado Williams 1:26.842 + 1.268
19. Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:26.970 + 1.396
20. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1:27.105 + 1.531
21. Charles Pic Caterham 1:27.487 + 1.913
22. Max Chilton Marussia 1:28.138 + 2.564
107% Time: 1:31.564
