» Hungarian GP: Vettel claims pole position

Eleven races in to the 2011 Formula 1 season, and not a single other team aside from Red Bull Racing has been able to claim pole position. And so Sebastian Vettel once again proved at the Hungaroring, claiming yet another pole – the 23rd of his career – with a scintillating effort ahead of tomorrow’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

The World Champion had been running slower than last weekend’s race-winner Lewis Hamilton as the final phase of qualifying began to wind down, but the German managed to improve his best time on a new set of Pirelli tyres to beat the McLaren driver by 0.163 seconds.

Jenson Button registered his best qualifying result of late with an impressive run to claim third on the grid, while Felipe Massa’s final lap was enough to net him the fourth-fastest time, also marking the first time all season he has been able to out-qualify team-mate Fernando Alonso.

With Mark Webber a disappointed sixth-fastest, Nico Rosberg, Adrian Sutil and Michael Schumacher completed positions seven to nine, having each opted to save a set of super-soft tyres by attempting only one Q3 run. Sauber driver Sergio Pérez, having made it into the top-ten with a sensational Q2 lap, didn’t bother to go out at all.

The final minutes of Q2 were frenetic, with a host of drivers bolting on the super-soft rubber to have a crack at making it into the final phase of qualifying. Late efforts from Sutil and Schumacher were enough to seem them scrape through, while Paul di Resta just missed out, followed on the grid by Vitaly Petrov, Kamui Kobayashi, Nick Heidfeld, Rubens Barrichello and Jaime Alguersuari.

After bumping Sébastien Buemi out of the Q2 reckoning with his final lap of the session, Williams’ Pastor Maldonado didn’t venture out at all in the second session, perhaps opting to conserve some tyres to use in the race tomorrow, where a three-stop pit strategy is expected to be the norm.

The slower nature of the Hungaroring – along with a raft of technical improvements – certainly made the Lotus outfit more competitive, to the point that Heikki Kovalainen only just fell short of out-pacing Buemi’s Toro Rosso, with the margin between the pair of just 0.3 seconds.

Worse still for the Swiss driver, he will serve a five-place grid penalty for his part in causing the collision with Nick Heidfeld at last weekend’s German Grand Prix.

Despite minor concerns that any combination of Virgin Racing and HRT runners would fail to qualify for Sunday’s 70-lap race, all four drivers comfortably made the Q1 107% cut. Rookie driver Daniel Ricciardo even managed to out-pace the Virgin Racing entry of Jérôme d’Ambrosio.

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2011 Hungarian Grand Prix – Qualifying Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault	1:21.710	1:21.095	1:19.815
2.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes	1:21.636	1:21.105	1:19.978
3.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes	1:22.038	1:20.578	1:20.024
4.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:22.130	1:21.099	1:20.350
5.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:21.578	1:20.262	1:20.365
6.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault	1:22.208	1:20.890	1:20.474
7.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1:22.996	1:21.243	1:21.098
8.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes	1:22.237	1:22.000	1:21.445
9.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1:22.876	1:21.852	1:21.907
10.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber Ferrari	1:23.067	1:22.157	no time
11.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes	1:22.976	1:22.256
12.	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1:23.070	1:22.284
13.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari	1:23.278	1:22.435
14.	Nick Heidfeld	Renault	1:23.024	1:22.470
15.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams Cosworth	1:23.075	1:22.684
16.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:23.285	1:22.979
17.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Cosworth	1:23.285	no time
18.	Sébastien Buemi*	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:24.070
19.	Heikki Kovalainen	Team Lotus Renault	1:24.362
20.	Jarno Trulli	Team Lotus Renault	1:24.534
21.	Timo Glock	Virgin Racing Cosworth	1:26.294
22.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT F1 Cosworth	1:26.323
23.	Daniel Ricciardo	HRT F1 Cosworth	1:26.479
24.	Jérôme d’Ambrosio	Virgin Racing Cosworth	1:26.510
	107% CUT-OFF TIME		1:27.288