Qualifying - Vettel on his mettle to best Brawns for pole 06 Jun 2009
Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel snatched pole position for Sundays Turkish Grand Prix as he bumped Brawn GP's Jenson Button off the top slot in the dying moments of qualifying at €stanbul Park.
€n the closing seconds Vettel's team mate Mark Webber set the pace with his second run as he lapped in 1m 28.613s, but moments later Button took that away with 1m 28.421s and Brawn team mate Rubens Barrichello pulled on to his bumper with 1m 28.579s. But Vettel's final run yielded 1m 28.316s to settle the issue.
Jarno Trulli's 1m 28.666s for Toyota beat the Ferraris, which start sixth and seventh in the order of Kimi Raikkonen (1m 28.815s) and Felipe Massa (1m 28.858s).
Fernando Alonso survived a half spin in Turn Eight and later lapped his Renault in 1m 29.075s for eighth, to head Nico Rosberg's Williams on 1m 29.191s and Robert Kubica's BMW Sauber on 1m 29.357s.
Vettel had set the weekend's fastest time to head Q2, with 1m 27.016s, and that session saw BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld (1m 27.521s), Williams' Kazuki Nakajima (1m 27.629s), Toyota's Timo Glock (1m 27.795s), McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen (1m 28.207s) and Force €ndia's Adrian Sutil (1m 28.391s) fail to make it through.
Amazingly, as Vettel and the Brawns had set the pace in Q1, Lewis Hamilton failed to make it through after lapping his McLaren in 1m 28.318s on hard-compound tyres. That headed Renault spinner Nelson Piquet (1m 28.582s), Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi (1m 28.708s), Force €ndia's Giancarlo Fisichella (1m 28.717s) and off-roader Sebastien Bourdais (1m 28.918s) in the second Toro Rosso.
