Red Bull’s Mark Webber tops qualifying at Spanish Grand Prix 2011 – Formula One News
Red Bull racing dominate proceedings as the three legged qualifying stage finally drew to a close in Spain. While Sebastian Vettel has often been regarded as the driver leading the charge, this time it was his teammate that went fastest with a blistering
1 minute 20.981.
Seeing the bigger picture, one could label the Spanish chapter with Red Bull leading the roost but on an individual front, it breaks Sebastian Vettel’s 100 percent record of topping the timesheets at the end of qualifying this term. Turning to Mark Webber,
it was subsequently his first pole of the season and the 7th of his career.
The McLaren of Lewis Hamilton starts on row two joined by the local boy Fernando Alonso classified 4th in his Ferrari – A mere 3 thousandths of a second slower than the Briton.
Jenson Button in the second McLaren starts 5th. Vitaly Petrov ran an impressive lap in the latter stages of the qualifying session to slingshot his way up to 6th – Quite an achievement for the Renault team seeing that they had a poor
race weekend.
Nico Rosberg looked threatening throughout the practice and qualifying sessions but had to settle for 7th fastest. His teammate, Michael Schumacher, managed to make it past the first two rounds of qualifying for the second time this season but
couldn’t go further than 10th fastest at the end of the 10 minute session.
Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari is set to occupy grid 8 for the start of the race – The Brazilian driver was nearly 2 seconds slower than the leading Red Bull duo.
Thanks to some inspired driving from the Venezuela-born driver Pastor Maldonado, Team Williams find themselves in uncharted territory as they managed to make the cut for Q3 for the first time this season – A confidence booster for the struggling team and
the rookie driver alike.
The Spanish Grand Prix promises to be yet another exciting spectacle. McLaren, thanks to a recent performance upgrade are touted to be Red Bull’s closest rivals for the race on Sunday.
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