Qualifying - Webber bests Vettel to take Yeongam pole 13 Oct 2012
Sebastian Vettel appeared to have pole position all locked up after the first runs in Q3, with 1m 37.316s, but on the second outings Red Bull team mate Mark Webber rose to the occasion brilliantly to post 1m 37.242s as Vettel’s fresh attempt stopped the clocks in 1m 37.316s.
As the cars from Milton Keynes again annexed the front row, Lewis Hamilton made a terrific effort to squeeze ahead of Fernando Alonso, with a lap for McLaren of 1m 37.469s compared to the Spaniard’s 1m 37.534s for Ferrari. The Briton had been lucky to avoid an accident as he was leaving the pits for his second run, when Mercedes released 2013 team-mate-to-be Nico Rosberg into his path. Mercedes were subsequently fined 10,000 euro for an unsafe release.
Behind Hamilton and Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen took advantage of Lotus’s enhanced form to take fifth with 1m 37.625s. Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Romain Grosjean in the other Lotus were next up on 1m 37.884s and 1m 37.934s.
Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg maximised a successful late run in Q2 to post 1m 38.266s for eighth, as Nico Rosberg took ninth ahead of Mercedes partner Michael Schumacher with 1m 38.361s to 1m 38.513s.
McLaren’s Jenson Button had failed to beat Schumacher by five-thousandths of a second in Q2 - and hence missed the Q3 cut - with a best lap of 1m 38.441s to the German’s 1m 38.436s, as Vettel, Alonso and Hamilton duked it out up front with respective laps of 1m 37.767s, 1m 37.987s and 1m 38.000s.
Row six will be the 2013 McLaren line-up, as Sergio Perez slipped into 12th with 1m 38.460s ahead of Sauber team mate Kamui Kobayashi on 1m 38.594s and Force India’s Paul di Resta on 1m 38.643s. Williams’ Pastor Maldonado will line up 15th on 1m 38.725s, with Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne taking 16th and 17th for Toro Rosso on 1m 39.084s and 1m 39.340s. The Australian rolled to a halt at Turn 16 on his final run with suspected gearbox problems.
As Vettel dominated Q1 with a lap of 1m 38.208s the session was almost a disaster for Hamilton, who plunged from mid-grid to 17th as the Toro Rosso drivers, Alonso and others improved. He could count himself lucky that Bruno Senna’s final effort fell short of his 1m 39.180s, leaving the Brazilian 18th on 1m 39.443s for Williams.
Behind him, Vitaly Petrov was again Caterham’s faster runner with 1m 40.207s to Heikki Kovalainen’s 1m 40.333s, while Charles Pic aced Marussia team mate Timo Glock with 1m 41.317s to 1m 41.371s. Pedro de la Rosa worked his HRT down to 1m 42.881s, but team mate Narain Karthikeyan didn’t record a time after spinning his F112 wildly in Turn Three after suffering brake issues. The Indian will thus race at the stewards' discretion.
Pic will drop to the back row thanks to a 10-place grid penalty for an engine change.
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