F1: Starting From Pole, Vettel Gunning For Fourth Straight Win

Formula 1

F1: Starting From Pole, Vettel Gunning For Fourth Straight Win

Sebastian Vettel led every practice in India, and then won the pole...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted October 27, 2012 New Delhi (IND)

Sebastian Vettel has given himself the best possible chance of winning four races in a row for the first time in his career by taking pole in India.

Vettel has set the pace all weekend, but made a mistake on his first run in Q3. He recovered with his second and final run to pip teammate Mark Webber.

“Around here there’s a lot of track improvements so in every session, it just seems to get faster,” said Vettel. “Obviously when everyone puts on new tires in qualifying, then it gets even more quicker. Up to the point of Q3 we were very happy with the car, and had no mistakes. The first lap in Q3 wasn’t perfect. I locked my front right into Turn Four. I think I was just a bit too greedy under braking and it didn’t come back, so it didn’t stop locking and I went a bit straight. So I had to abort the lap, because I’d lost too much time.

“And focus on the second attempt, which fortunately was fine. I was very happy, this time braking a bit too early for Turn Four, but all in all it was a very good session for us. The car was fantastic.

“I think we improved the car from yesterday. We had a couple of new bits, so seemed to be able to make another step forward so, yeah, we have to keep pushing. Today is obviously a good result from us, first and second on the grid, one and two, but tomorrow is the main exercise with the race.

“I think the McLarens are very quick, went very quick in the long run yesterday, as well as the Ferraris. So, I think it will be a close race. Also in terms of strategy it could be a surprise. We’ll see what happens.”

As usual, Vettel said he wasn’t going to think too much about championship permutations relative to his rivals.

“We have to focus on the start tomorrow, focus on ourselves,” he said. “We cannot influence what the others are doing. Fernando (Alonso) could have been a second quicker today than everyone and there's nothing we could have done, apart from trying to mind our own business and trying to get the fastest lap we can, which I guess is everyone's exercise in qualifying. It's a long race tomorrow, a lot of things can happen and sure, if we are ahead, it's better than being behind.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.