SEBASTIAN FRONTS UP IN MURKY MONTREAL Sebastian Vettel claimed his third consecutive Montreal pole position ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and surprise third-place finisher Valtteri Bottas at a damp and treacherous Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve. With light rain falling across the Île Notre-Dame in the run-up to Q1, exploratory laps on the supersoft slick Pirelli tyres soon gave way to intermediate tyres as the drivers attempted to deal with the difficult conditions. And the trickiness was underlined at the end of the opening segment when regular top 10 runners Romain Grosjean and Paul Di Resta were caught out. Both failed to improve in the final minutes of the opening segment and were dumped out of the session along with the Marussias of Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton and the Caterhams of Giedo van der Garde and Charles Pic. There were no such problems for the Infiniti Red Bull Racing pairing of Sebastian and Mark Webber. Seb sailed through in P1 and Mark eased into Q2 in P3, the pair sandwiching Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. Bottas, already looking in command of the conditions, ended up in fourth spot. The drama continued in Q2. Late in the session, Felipe Massa lost control of his Ferrari on the run to Turn 3 and went into the barriers. His accident brought out the red flags. With just two minutes left on the clock, the restart was always going to be a frantic affair as drivers sought last-ditch improvements and so it proved as a huge queue formed at the pit-lane exit. Caught up in the traffic was McLaren’s Jenson Button who, after his out lap, narrowly failed to make it across the line before the chequered flag fell. He was eliminated along with team-mate Sergio Perez, the first time both McLarens have qualified outside the top 10 since Malaysia 2010. It was a more successful session for Toro Rosso. The Italian team saw both its drivers through to the final top-10 shoot-out for the first time since Indian in 2011. At the start of Q3 Sebastian lined up at the head of the pack at the pit exit, waiting for the green light to go on and when the flag fell 10 minutes later, the defending champion was still at the front of the field, the German sealing his 39th career pole position. “It was very tricky today, especially as you never knew what the conditions were going to be like the next time you went out,” he said afterwards. “It was intermediate tyres throughout, but it was extremely difficult to adapt as the conditions were constantly changing. “In the last qualifying session we decided to have two runs; we thought the second would be quicker, as we had a new set of tyres for that, but it started to drizzle in the last sector, in particular in the chicane,” he added. “I went straight there on one lap and on the second I had a mistake somewhere else, so it turned out that the first run was the important one. I’m happy the lap was good enough, as it was tight with Lewis. Congratulations to Valtteri, I think he did an excellent job putting the Williams on P3. For us, I am extremely happy with the result and looking forward to the race tomorrow. I think we had strong pace yesterday, so no matter what the conditions we should be in decent shape.” With Hamilton second and Bottas third, fourth spot on the grid went to Nico Rosberg, while Mark claimed fifth place. Afterwards, the Aussie admitted the conditions had been difficult. “That was quite tricky for everyone," he said. "It’s a bit of a mixed grid and I would have liked to have been a bit more comfortable than fifth, but in the end it’s what we got,” he said. “There’s a long way to go tomorrow, so let’s see how it unfolds. It was a good job by Bottas and it should be an interesting grand prix. Dry conditions tomorrow are nicer for everyone as it makes it a bit more predictable and straightforward, and visibility here isn’t great here if it rains.” Team Principal Christian Horner agreed that the conditions had meant nothing could be taken for granted and he confessed his delight at the result. “It’s fantastic to get the pole in Montreal,” he said. “It was a really difficult qualifying session and it’s very easy for things to go wrong in a session like that. Just to get both cars in Q3 was a result, so to get pole with Sebastian and P5 with Mark on the grid for tomorrow’s grand prix is a really positive starting position.” Mark will be joined on row three of the grid by Alonso, while seventh place went to Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne. The Frenchman will line up just ahead of Force India’s Adrian Sutil. Row five will see Kimi Raikkonen line up ninth for Lotus and Daniel Ricciardo will start tenth in the second Toro Rosso.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 01:35:26 +0000
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