Vettel takes Red Bull's maiden pole in China!

NEW DELHI: He did it for Toro Rosso at Monza last year and now Sebastian Vettel has just given Red Bull Racing their maiden pole position in Shanghai, and how!
It's been a while since we've seen such close action in F1 and boy, is it welcome! With almost half the grid separated by just a second after Q1, it was a roller coaster of fastest times as one driver after the other kept bettering their compatriot's times.Button, Barrichello, Vettel, Webber, Hamilton, Rosberg - all exchanged fastest times at one point or the other and it could have been anyone's pole position at the end of the day.
By the end of Q1 both Force India cars had been left out of the proceedings for the rest of the day. At the moment things seem pretty dismal for the sole Indian effort in F1 but things should pick up as the season proceeds to Europe in a couple of races time. Both Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella had showed immense promise as pre season testing went underway earlier this year but the bubble of hope fizzled off after the very first race in Australia.
Joining the Force India cars in the relegation zone after Q1 were Robert Kubica's BMW Sauber, Nelsinho Piquet's Renault and Sebastien Bourdais' Toro Rosso. Kubica failed to find pace as the team experimented with the KERS system on his car in Friday practice but opted against it for qualifying and the race.
Q2 was as action-packed as Q1 if not better. The Brawn cars seemed to be on top of the session with challenges coming in from Mark Webber's Red Bull and the Williams cars as well. Both McLaren and Ferrari had a mixed session with only one each of their cars making it through to the final session. With Hamilton getting a new aero package on his car which was clearly making a huge difference to the MP4-24's performance, Kovalainen had to make do with a lack of downforce and got relegated.
Ferrari on the other hand seem to have made yet another tactical error with Massa losing out in Q2. The Brazilian driver wasn't too far off Kimi Raikkonen's pace in the first session and even when he set his first time for the second session. He failed to improve on his time though in the closing stages and found himself sitting it out in the final session. Kazuki Nakajima in the Williams, Timo Glock in the Toyota and Nick Heidfeld in the second of the BMW-Saubers were the other three drivers to miss out on Q3.
The cars came out pretty late in Q3 but when they did, all hell broke lose. Right from the start it was nothing like the first two races of the season and for a change it looked like the Brawn drivers would have to fight it out if they were to grab pole again in Shanghai. Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello put in fast lap after another but in the end managed only p4 and 5 with Barrichello out-qualifying his team mate. Jarno Trulli, Nico Rosberg, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastien Buemi made up 6th to 10th place - the Toro Rosso driver doing a great job to get his car in the top ten.
Double decker diffuser or not, Red Bull proved that it takes a lot more to be quick. Mark Webber delighted throughout with lightning fast laps but the real surprise didn't come from the p3 driver. Sebastien Vettel had sat out the whole of Q2 conserving his car with his team worried of a drive shaft issue, but the young German stunned everyone as he came out in the final minutes and put in a storming lap to get the fastest time then. And no surprise, Vettel did the same in Q3. With just 11 laps in the whole qualifying session which is just about as much as drivers who got relegated in Q1 did, Sebastian Vettel scored Red Bull Racing's first ever pole position - what a performance indeed! And that was still not the surprise of the day! That privilege goes to none other than second placed Fernando Alonso!
The Spaniard's sudden boost to the top row of the grid should be a clear indication that he was running a very light fuel load - also indicating that he is most likely to start off on the super soft tyres for a short, but very fast first stint tomorrow. With three Renault-engined cars at the top of the Shanghai grid for the race on Sunday, we're poised for explosions. Will Brawn GP be able to make it three in a row or will Shanghai be owned by Vettel and Red Bull? Stay tuned to all the action right here as the drama unfolds at 12.30 pm IST on Sunday.