F1 Qualifying Times: Webber wins the Red Bull duel in Spain

Saturdays at F1 weekends in recent times have often become two-car battles for pole position, and to this point in the 2011 each pole was won by Sebastian Vette. But this weekend, Mark Webber came out on top, finally edging out his Red Bull counterpart.

“It was a good session”, said Webber. “It was clear going into qualifying that we might have had a bit of a margin and would be battling for pole between ourselves today. You can never underestimate these guys though. We got through Q1 on the first set of hard tires, which was good, and then in the crucial part of qualifying – in Q3 – it was just about getting the lap right. The lap was pretty good and I was just praying that my number went to the top when I crossed the line. It was a nice lap, a good battle with Seb and today was my day.”

Mark Webber’s feat of knocking Vettel off the pole is impressive, but may be partially due to the fact that Vettel’s KERS system did not work properly during yesterday’s session. But Vettel says he doesn’t think the KERS issue is that big of a story.

“Yes we are working very hard on the KERS, no I didn’t use it for Q2 and Q3 but I’m sure we’ll have it tomorrow”, Vettel told ESPNF1. “It’s difficult to say, it’s not right to say now ‘OK I didn’t have KERS – that’s why Mark’s on pole’, I think he deserved pole so he did a better job today, but sure it was not ideal.”

Vettel went on  to say that he thinks they will have KERS back for the race tomorrow.

Pos Driver Team Qualifying Lap 1 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 01:21.000 2 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 01:21.181 3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 01:21.961 4 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 01:21.964 5 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 01:21.996 6 Vitaly Petrov Renault 01:22.471 7 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 01:22.599 8 Felipe Massa Ferrari 01:22.888 9 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 01:22.952 10 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 01:22.671 11 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 01:23.231 12 Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 01:23.367 13 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 01:23.694 14 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 01:23.702 15 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 01:25.403 16 Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 01:26.126 17 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 01:26.571 18 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 01:26.521 19 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 01:26.910 20 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 01:27.315 21 Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 01:27.809 22 Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 01:27.908 23 Jerome d’Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 01:28.556 Nick Heidfeld Renault no time