Sebastian Vettel has secured his third consecutive pole position at the Indian Grand Prix following an incredible performance that saw him finish over three-quarters of a second clear of the rest of the field.
Vettel came into the weekend boasting a perfect record at Buddh International Circuit, and following his domination of practice, a similar performance in qualifying was far from surprising. Nevertheless, it was a titanic effort from the German driver as Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton failed to pose any serious threat, whilst Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso both opted for alternative strategies thus throwing away the opportunity to challenge the soon-to-be four time world champion.
Qualifying got underway in India in a quiet fashion as most drivers opted to wait before setting their first times due to the level of degradation. Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez was the first man to post a time, but his lap of 1:27.529 was around one second off the predicted ‘cut off’ time to get into the second session. Nico Rosberg was the first driver to come close to this theoretical time, going fastest whilst both Red Bulls remained in the pits in favor of a later run. When they did emerge, Vettel opted for the medium compound whilst Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso both elected for the softer tire to secure themselves a place in Q2. Alonso went fastest with his first timed lap, but Vettel was just 0.009 seconds slower despite the large pace difference between the compounds. Every other driver except Romain Grosjean opted to run on the soft tire, and this proved to be a costly call for Lotus as the Frenchman lost out to a final flurry of times to be eliminated in Q1. Pastor Maldonado also failed to make it through, joining both Caterhams and both Marussias in the dropzone, but Jules Bianchi finished just 0.128 seconds behind the Williams, suggesting that Marussia have made improvements of late.
Despite the obvious pace difference between the tires, Sauber opted to send Nico Hulkenberg out on the medium compound in order to make up for the time lost in FP3. However, the rest of the runners sensibly took to the soft tires with Fernando Alonso setting the first benchmark of 1:25.546 for the rest of the field, but both Mercedes drivers managed to topple the Ferrari after their first runs. Mark Webber ran very wide on his first lap but managed to go quickest, only for Vettel to beat his time by over half a second on his first soft-tire run of the day. Alonso split the Red Bulls with his final run as the rest of the field looked to get into the top ten, with McLaren running strongly to ease into the final session. However, Daniel Ricciardo was less fortunate to be eliminated in eleventh place ahead of the Force India pair of Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil, with Jean-Eric Vergne down in fourteenth. Valtteri Bottas also dropped out in P15 and Esteban Gutierrez’s good qualifying form came to an end as he finished down in sixteenth.
Q3 quickly became a question of strategy as the top ten drivers appeared to be unsure which tire to use as they would have to start on that compound in the race. Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren all split their strategy, sending one driver out on each compound, but Vettel looked to continue his 100% pole record in India by going out on the soft tires. Alonso set the first benchmark on the medium tire only for Vettel to go 1.7 seconds quicker on the soft tire with Vettel joining him on the provisional front row. Kimi Raikkonen followed Vettel’s example but was over one second slower. Rosberg and Hamilton were the only drivers to come close on their soft tire runs, qualifying second and third respectively ahead of Webber on the medium compound. Felipe Massa produced a great performance to finish fifth ahead of Raikkonen and Hulkenberg who also qualified on the soft tire. Fernando Alonso, Sergio Perez and Jenson Button completed the top ten on the prime tire, hoping that their strategy will make up for their lack of pace in the race.
At the front though, there appears to be no stopping Sebastian Vettel, and it will take a remarkable performance to stop him from winning the race let alone recording the top five finish he needs to clinch his fourth title.
