Mark Webber became the first driver to beat Sebastian Vettel to pole position this season, but mostly thanks to having a KERS advantage.
With Red Bull dominating this weekend's Spanish GP practice in Barcelona many were expecting a Red Bull 1-2 in qualifying and the reigning World Champions delivered. Lewis Hamilton took third place while Fernando Alonso finally improved on his regular P5 to take fourth, 0.003s up on Jenson button.
Qualifying 1
It was typically gusty and sunny at the Circuit de Catalunya as qualifying got underway with an ambient temperature of 24C and the track at 35C, which would climb to 43C by the end of the session.
Nick Heidfeld's car was still being worked on by the Renault mechanics following his morning practice problems, where a cracked exhaust had set the rear of the car on fire. If he didn't manage to get out and set a time then it would likely be the new teams and him in the bottom seven. This - in theory -meant that everyone could save the softer tyres for Q2.
However with a two-second performance difference between the harder Prime tyre and the softer Option, Mercedes' Ross Brawn was already predicting that Lotus's pace on the soft tyre, would force others to seek the safety of using the Option earlier than they'd like. He proved correct.
Vitaly Petrov set the first meaningful pole at 1:26.107 on his second lap of a multi-lap run on hard tyres, he lowered this to 1:25.621 third time round. Jenson Button took over P1 on the second hot lap of four timed laps.
Button's time on top didn't last long as Mark Webber eclipsed it on the first of his timed runs with a 1:23.938. Vettel slotted into P2 before Mark lowered P1 to a 1:23.619.
With just over half of the session run Jaime Alguersuari was one of the first drivers of the top teams to try Options and duly put his Toro Rosso into P2, this was then snatched off him by team-mate Sebastien Buemi. With nine minutes of the session to run the floor was still to be put on Heidfeld's Renault...
Kamui Kobayashi took over P2 in his Sauber and all of a sudden almost all of the top teams decided to guarantee their place in Q2 with a run on the Option tyre. The reason was that Heikki Kovalainen had managed a 1:25.874 on a single run in the Lotus. To place this in context, Felipe Massa could only manage a 1:26 on hard tyres so definitely had to run again. And if Heidfeld got out and showed pace then all hell would break loose down the field.
So in the end everyone bar the Red Bulls and the McLarens used up one set of the precious Option tyres making sure they didn't head for the exit in Q1. In the final minutes of the session the danger zone was: 16.Barrichello, 17.Sutil, 18.DiResta, 19.Liuzzi.
Sutil hauled himself up to P11, just as Vitaly Petrov took over P1 with a 1:23.069 which was trumped by Michael Schumacher with a 1:22.960. DiResta jumped to P10, but Rubens Barrichello couldn't leave the pits, his car stuck with a gearbox problem.
DiResta's time pushed Massa into P17, but then Massa got the two-second boost from the Option tyre and finished the session in P5, Alonso in P4 and Pastor Maldonado an impressive P3. In the end Heidfeld never made it out of pitlane.
So out went: 18.Trulli, 19.Barrichello, 20.Glock, 21.Liuzzi, 22.Karthikeyan, 23.D'Ambrosio, 24.Heidfeld (no time).
Kovalainen had made it through to Q2 for Lotus. Although he didn't manage to beat Alonso or Schumacher's time on hard tyres - thus meaning they hadn't needed to waste a set of Options - it was a very close call. Hamilton and Button, who had both been quicker, ended the session in P14 and P15.
With Lotus's rapid improvement and the new gap in performance between the Pirelli hard and soft tyres, Tony Fernandes' team have the ability to scare the living daylights out of some of the older teams by leaving their runs till very late on and not giving them a benchmark till it's too late.
Qualifying 2
Sebastian Vettel was first out on track in what proved to be a very undramatic final two qualifying sessions, Vettel set P1 at 1:21.540, significantly with no KERS energy to assist him, second man out Mark Webber slotted into P2, third man out Jenson Button took P3 and finally fourth man out Lewis Hamilton took P4. It was almost their car numbers.
All four men had the luxury of another run on Option tyres but such was the difference in their times and the rest of the field, who had already done much slower Option laps in Q1, nobody expected to see them out again.
There was a gap in the middle of the session and with four minutes left six cars were yet to set a time. Rosberg took P5 ahead of Alonso in P6 with Petrov in P7.
Going into the final three minutes the danger positions were: 8.Massa, 9.Buemi, 10.Kobayashi, 11.Alguersuari (no time), 12.Perez (no time), 13.Schumacher (no time), 14.Sutil (no time), 15.Di Resta (no time), 16.Maldonado (no time), 17.Kovalainen (no time)
There were doubts whether Kovalainen would even bother setting a time and simply save his tyres for the race, but in the end Lotus sent him onto the track. And the team got an unexpected bonus when Force India sent both their cars out to qualify on hard tyres confirming P16 and P17.
Maldonado jumped up into P8 pushing Felipe Massa into P10, Alguersuari could only manage P12, Perez then took P12, Kovalainen P15 but it was down to Kamui Kobayashi to relegate Felipe Massa from Q3. The Japanese driver had a good enough first sector but then aborted the lap. It was touch and go whether he would have beaten Massa's time, and with profligate overtaking now, losing out in Q2 is no longer the shame it was.
Thus the session ended with the drop-zone as: 11.Buemi, 12.Perez, 13.Alguersuari, 14. Kobayashi, 15.Kovalainen,16.DiResta, 17.Sutil
Once again DiResta had outqualified Sutil and both had saved tyres for tomorrow.
Qualifying 3
Q3 was like Q2 in reverse. Instead of the first four cars putting in progressively slower times, the first four cars put in progressively quicker times. Button set provisional pole at 1:21.996, Hamilton beat him by a fraction with a 1:21.961, Vettel beat them both by a lot with a 1:21.181, and then Mark Webber took pole with a 1:20.981.
It was almost the cars in number order again. On the way, Lewis had slightly flat-spotted his front left tyre, but was confident it could be re-balalnced for the race. It certainly wasn't bad enough for him to go out again and he had enough time, and tyres to make that decision.
That looked to be the first two rows sorted out - because none of the front-runners would waste a set of tyres on a place they could lose in seconds off the start line and the McLarens weren't going to beat the Red Bulls.
There was then a gap till the next car out, Pastor Maldonado, who only set off down pitlane with 2:40 left on the clock. Michael Schumacher chose a set of hard tyres, rumbled round for a lap, then came into the pits choosing not to set a time. His team-mate, Nico Rosberg, grabbed P5 off Maldonado, before Fernando Alonso defied all the expectation of his home crowd and failed to qualify in his usual P5.
Instead, a blinding lap from the Asturian managed to take P4, just a whisker shy of P3 man Hamilton and a whisker ahead of Jenson Button who was demoted to P4. It meant that there was just 0.035 separating three cars. Massa could only finish P8.
Thus Mark Webber ruined Vettel's run of pole positions that he'd continued on from 2010, mostly thanks to the 0.5 second a lap advantage of KERS that his team-mate didn't have in Q3. With a big difference in tyre performance between the hard and soft tyres, the correct strategy will count for a lot more in the race tomorrow.
FH
Times
01. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m20.981s
02. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m21.181s + 0.200
03. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m21.961s + 0.980
04. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m21.964s + 0.983
05. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m21.996s + 1.015
06. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1m22.471s + 1.490
07. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m22.599s + 1.618
08. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m22.888s + 1.907
09. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1m22.952s + 1.971
10. Michael Schumacher Mercedes
11. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m23.231s + 1.691
12. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m23.367s + 1.827
13. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m23.694s + 2.154
14. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m23.702s + 2.162
15. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1m25.403s + 3.863
16. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercede 1m26.126s + 4.586
17. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercede 1m26.571s + 5.031
18. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1m26.521s + 3.561
19. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m26.910s + 3.950
20. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m27.315s + 4.355
21. Tonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 1m27.809s + 4.849
22. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1m27.908s + 4.948
23. Jerome D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1m28.556s + 5.596
24. Nick Heidfeld Renault No time
