Full Throttle

Sebastian Vettel captured pole position for the British Grand Prix, while Formula One championship leader Jenson Button will start from a season-worst sixth.

In his revamped Red Bull car, Vettel set the fastest lap time in qualifying for the third time this year, finishing in 1min 19.509sec, 0.347sec ahead of Button’s Brawn teammate Rubens Barrichello.

“It’s been a fantastic weekend so far from beginning to end,” Vettel said. “All the parts we have brought here seem to be working well, so we have made a good step forward.

“But when it comes to qualifying, there is tension there. You try to do your best, and you try to get a good feeling. In Q3 I had the lap of the weekend. From beginning to end it was very close to being perfect. I brought the lap to the checkered flag, and I was surprised by how quick I was at that stage, yet it was enough to get pole.”

Rubens saved his best lap for the last session of knockout qualifying, “it was the best lap of the weekend in Q3 where I took the extreme of the car. I need to check if I breathed during the lap because it was such a nice one. Silverstone has always been quite good and I want to thank all my engineers for their hard work because we found a good balance and I’m pleased to be in the middle of them (the Red Bulls) at least. It’s going to be hard to beat them tomorrow but that’s what I’m here for.”

Mark Webber finished third as Red Bull continued a dominating weekend on the Silverstone circuit.

Mark Webber apparently thought he might have done even better then the third spot on the grid, if not for a big mistake by Kimi Raikkonen from Ferrari.

“I would have liked a slightly cleaner run on my last Q3 lap.” said Webber. “Kimi (Räikkönen) was, I don’t know, drinking some vodka or dreaming or something… I don’t know what the hell he was doing. He should have been on the right and he’s on the racing line, dreaming, so that wrecked my rhythm into Stowe, I was very tight into there and so…”

In the drivers’ standings, Button is 26 points ahead of Barrichello and leads Vettel by 32.

Button was almost 0.8sec behind Vettel, and the Briton will also have Toyota’s Jarno Trulli and Kazuki Nakajima of Williams ahead of him tomorrow.

“I really struggled with low grip, especially in the last complex,” said Button, who has won six of the season’s first seven races. “I just felt like I was skating around. Qualifying was not fantastic - but that’s the way it was.”

Behind Button, the top 10 was completed by Nico Rosberg of Williams, Timo Glock of Toyota, Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari and Renault’s Fernando Alonso.

Home fans were left disappointed early in qualifying when defending F1 champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren, who won last year’s race, failed to get out of the first session. He will start at the back from 19th.

“It’s disappointing,” Hamilton said. “I just don’t have a good car.”

Only Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi was slower than Hamilton.

Hamilton’s hopes of completing a final lap ended when the first 20-minute qualifying run was stopped with 24 seconds to go when the red flag emerged.

Adrian Sutil lost control of his Force India car and rear-ended the protective barrier of tires. After being given the all-clear by medics, Sutil blamed the crash on his breaks.

So with both Red Bull’s in the top 3, it really is their race to lose.

Barrichello is due for some good luck to start rolling his way, but it seems to me that the Red Bulls are just dialed in. Vettel is the clear favorite, but somehow I just have a feeling that Mark Webber will pull this one off and score the very first victory of his long career at Silverstone.

British Grand Prix Starting Grid

1. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull-Renault - 1′19.509
2. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn-Mercedes - 1′19.856
3. Mark Webber, Red Bull-Renault - 1′19.868
4. Jarno Trulli, Toyota - 1′20.091
5. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams-Toyota - 1′20.216
6. Jenson Button, Brawn-Mercedes - 1′20.289
7. Nico Rosberg, Williams-Toyota - 1′20.361
8. Timo Glock, Toyota - 1′20.490
9. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari - 1′20.715
10. Fernando Alonso, Renault - 1′20.741
11. Felipe Massa, Ferrari - 1′18.927
12. Robert Kubca, BMW - 1′19.308
13. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren-Mercedes - 1′19.353
14. Nelson Piquet Jnr, Renault - 1′19.392
15. Nick Heidfeld, BMW - 1′19.448
16. Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India-Mercedes - 1′19.802
17. Sebastian Bourdais, Toro Rosso-Ferrari - 1′19.898
18. Adrian Sutil, Force India-Mercedes - 1′19.909
19. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren-Mercedes - 1′19.917
20. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso-Ferrari - 1′20.236