Formula One:Sebastian Vettel today became a Formula One record-breaker as the pole magician conjured up the 15th of his phenomenal season ahead of tomorrow's finale in Brazil.
Double world champion Vettel was again in a class of his own over one lap in the final qualifying session of the year at Interlagos.
The 24-year-old German now possesses the record for outright number of poles in a single season after matching the previous best mark of 14, posted by Nigel Mansell in 1992, two weeks ago in Abu Dhabi.
Underlining Red Bull’s superiority, Mark Webber managed to lock out the front row for the team, finishing 0.117secs behind Vettel.
All the McLarens could manage was third and fourth, albeit with Jenson Button out-qualifying Lewis Hamilton for the seventh time this year — the latter half a second behind Vettel.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, as he expected, was fifth ahead of Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes, who has the second Ferrari of Felipe Massa behind him.
Force India’s Adrian Sutil, in what was almost certainly his last qualifying session for the team ahead of an anticipated move to Williams, was a superb eighth.
Bruno Senna, who is expected to make way for Romain Grosjean next season, was ninth in his Renault, out-qualifying Vitaly Petrov for the fifth time in eight races, with Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher 10th.
Asked about his emotions in claiming the record, Vettel said: “It’s difficult. There had been quite some talk before qualifying about this particular record, but it was best not to think about it at all.
“So I was enjoying the moment, enjoying the laps, and I put everything into the last lap. It was very emotional when I crossed the line because I knew I had given it my all.
“I then had to wait quite a time to see if it was good enough or not. It took the master in Nigel Mansell a few races less (16), but in the end it’s really special and different to other poles.”