When the great history book of close shaves is written, Sebastian Vettel’s pole position lap for the 2010 German Grand Prix will get a worthy mention.
He snatched P1 from Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso by a mere two-thousandths of a second: 1:13.791 to 1.13.793, to take his third pole position in a row and his sixth of the season.
'Pole is the best you can do on a Saturday, so we have to be happy' – Vettel
The jubilation in the Red Bull Racing garage said everything about how close the fight had been between Vettel and Alonso; the pair were the only two to make it into the 1m13s zone.
Mark Webber secured fourth place with a 1:14.347 lap, behind Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari on 1:14.290.
He admitted a small error had cost him a front-row place: "I got a little bit wide on the entry to Turn 1 - stuck the front of the car out and I couldn't get back into the line. My fault, and it wasn't good enough. Not the best qualifying so I look to the race tomorrow."
For the first time this weekend, the session was dry throughout, although that did not prevent Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi from spinning his car into the pit-straight wall and damaging it heavily early in the qualifying hour.
Speaking about his first home-race pole, Vettel said: “It’s not a nice feeling when you set the fastest time and you go down the straight saying ‘please, please, please let it be fast enough’. Then you get the call from the pit that it is by just two-thousandths of a second, you are even more released.
“It was a very tough session,” he added, “but pole is the best you can do on a Saturday, so we have to be happy.”
Alonso, starting from the front row for the first time this season, said he believed his team had turned a corner: “It has taken us 10 races to get on the front row and finally we have found a good way with the car. Now we have to take this forward for the rest of the season.”
Championship leader Lewis Hamilton and second-placed Jenson Button, both McLaren drivers, wound up sixth (Lewis) and fifth (Jenson).The top ten was rounded out by Robert Kubica (Renault), Rubens Barrichello (Williams), Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) and Nico Hulkenberg (Williams).
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