Mark Webber grabs pole in Suzuka

f1 Mark Webber grabs pole in Suzuka

Mark Webber - RedBull Racing in Suzuka pole

Vettel faced KERS failure in Q3 - Suzuka

Mark Webber grabs first pole of 2013 beating Vettel

Australian driver Mark Webber beats World Champion team mate Sebastian Vettel to grab his first pole of 2013 at Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix. Red Bull's No. driver Vettel was confirmed of having KERS problem in Q3 while Lewis Hamilton sneaked in for third spot at the final moment moving ahead of Romain Grosjean.

Webber set the pace in Q1 displacing Lewis Hamilton who had already displaced Fernando Alonso. The session came to a brief halt as the Torro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne halted with smoke and fire from the rear brakes. The session restarted after the fire was doused with just time for a single timed lap. Another fire incident broke out in the pits from the back of Jules Bianchi car when he parked in his box. Sutil of Force India who had crash in Practice 3 was the first to miss out getting into Q2 along with Verge, Chilton, Pic, Van der Garde and Bianchi.

In Q2 Vettel got the better of team mate Webber while others struglling to challenge the Red Bull. Massa managed to push out Perez from the top 10 for Q3 with a late gasp to slot into 6th.

Mark Webber set the first pole time and also bettered on the second run as Vettel ran into trouble with his KERS and couldn't challenge his Red Bull team mate. World champion Vettel faced a KERS failure in his first run which was rectified for his second run but with no use. Hamilton who was 10th managed to sneak into 4th first and then to 3rd on the last moment. Romain Grosjean outpaced Lotus team mate Raikonnen while in the Ferrari camp outgoing Massa outpaced team mate Alonso, a similar story like Webber outpacing team mate Vettel for pole.

Nico Rosberg slotted in 6th behind Massa in 5th, Hulkenberg got ahead of Alonso to grab 7th while Raikkonen got ahead of Button to grab 9th.

2013 Japanese Grand Prix – Qualifying Results

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing–Renault	1:32.271	1:31.513	1:30.915
2	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing–Renault	1:32.397	1:31.290	1:31.089
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:32.340	1:31.636	1:31.253
4	Romain Grosjean	Lotus–Renault	1:31.824	1:31.565	1:31.365
5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:31.994	1:31.668	1:31.378
6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:32.244	1:31.764	1:31.397
7	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber–Ferrari	1:32.465	1:31.848	1:31.644
8	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:32.371	1:31.828	1:31.665
9	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus–Renault	1:32.377	1:31.662	1:31.684
10	Jenson Button	McLaren–Mercedes	1:32.606	1:31.838	1:31.827
11	Sergio Perez	McLaren–Mercedes	1:32.718	1:31.989
12	Paul di Resta	Force India–Mercedes	1:32.286	1:31.992
13	Valtteri Bottas	Williams–Renault	1:32.613	1:32.013
14	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber–Ferrari	1:32.673	1:32.063
15	Pastor Maldonado	Williams–Renault	1:32.875	1:32.093
16	Daniel Ricciardo	STR–Ferrari	1:32.804	1:32.485
17	Adrian Sutil	Force India–Mercedes	1:32.890
18	Jean–Eric Vergne	STR–Ferrari	1:33.357
19	Max Chilton	Marussia–Cosworth	1:34.320
20	Charles Pic	Caterham–Renault	1:34.556
21	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham–Renault	1:34.879
22	Jules Bianchi	Marussia–Cosworth	1:34.958

Grid Penalties : Sutil, Pic and Bianchi all have grid penalties; Sutil five places for changing his gearbox after his FP3 crash, Pic and Bianchi face 10-place penalties for picking up their third reprimands of the season in Korea. That means that the last six drivers on the grid will line up in this order: Vergne, Chilton, Van der Garde, Sutil, Pic and Bianchi.