World championship leader Sebastian Vettel underlined his superiority by storming to pole position for today’s Chinese Grand Prix with the fastest lap ever recorded at the Shanghai circuit.
The 23-year-old’s Red Bull clocked a time of one minute 33.706 seconds, seven-tenths of a second quicker than the McLaren of Jenson Button, sending a strong message to rivals that the German remains the man to beat.
By taking pole, defending champion Vettel became the first Formula One driver since Michael Schumacher in 2004 to start at the front of the grid in the opening three races of the season.
But despite wins in this year’s opening two races in Australia and Malaysia, Vettel said he would be taking nothing for granted on race day.
“Obviously, we did it again but I try to remind myself and the team that every time is tough,” Vettel told reporters.
“It all starts from zero again. We are as happy as we can be with the car, we had good long runs on Friday so have reason to feel good,” he said.
“It is not easy... but people tend to forget that.”
Yesterday’s qualifying completed a hat-trick of pole position placings in China for Vettel, who has dominated the season so far and already looks unstoppable.
Button’s McLaren came in at one minute 34.421 seconds, with his team-mate and fellow Briton Lewis Hamilton in third, in a time of one minute 34.463.
Hamilton quipped that Vettel’s trio of pole positions this season meant the champion was finding life “too easy”, but the German said Red Bull could not afford to be complacent.
“Teams like McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes are not as happy as they want to be,” Vettel said.
“They are pushing very hard, so to stay where we are, we have to push harder than them to stay there.
“We are all aware of that, and since 2009 we have had a very, very competitive car and we are enjoying to run on the front, but we have not forgotten how it feels to run at the back.”
Compatriot Nico Rosberg in a Mercedes and Fernando Alonso, of Ferrari, finished in fourth and fifth place respectively, with Brazil’s Felipe Massa, also in a Ferrari, completing the third row.
But Vettel’s Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber suffered another dreadful day and was unable to improve on 18th place from early on in qualifying, almost three seconds back from the championship leader.
Red Bull’s elation at Vettel’s performance, which saw him claim pole with six minutes of the session remaining, was understandably tempered by Webber’s disastrous outing.
On a cool day at the Shanghai International Circuit, where the track temperature was only 23 Celsius, Australian Webber struggled for pace on hard tyres.
“It’s been a dreadful day for Mark,” said team boss Christian Horner.
“He had some electrical problems and it was a massive effort to get the car ready. Not a great first run. We went again on the primes and unfortunately those tyres were not quite up to temperature and it didn’t work out.”