Motor Sport: Mark Webber finally ended Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel's run of poles as he clinched top spot on the grid for tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix. After five in a row for the reigning world champion, Vettel had to settle for second behind the Australian.
It is Red Bull’s second successive all-front row start after Vettel spearheaded the grid in Turkey a fortnight ago, with the duo on this occasion split by just 0.200secs.
Webber finished a second clear of McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, with home hero Fernando Alonso giving his fans something to cheer when he snatched fourth spot at the death from Jenson Button.
It was again all too easy for Red Bull as Webber and Vettel opted to quit the top-10 shoot-out with 90 seconds remaining, safe in the knowledge no one was going to better their times.
Webber was out in front with a lap of one minute 20.981 seconds for his second pole in a row at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya, and will now look to follow that up again with victory.
Behind the top five, Renault’s Vitaly Petrov starts sixth ahead of the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg, with Felipe Massa ninth for Ferrari. Pastor Maldonado, in Q3 for the first time in his rookie year, will start ninth for Williams ahead of Michael Schumacher who opted not to run in Q3, so saving a set of tyres.
In the 15-minute Q2, Sebastien Buemi topped the seven drivers to exit in that session and will start 11th in his Toro Rosso, with team-mate Jaime Alguersuari 13th. Sandwiched in between the duo is Sauber’s Sergio Perez, who is also two places ahead of his team-mate Kamui Kobayashi.
The star turn was Heikki Kovalainen, making Q2 for only the second time for Lotus, and giving the team their best position in a dry qualifying session of 15th.
The Finn was able to beat the Force India pair of Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil, who start 16th and 17th, with the Silverstone-based team suddenly having slipped to the back of the midfield pack.