Webber storms to crucial pole position

Australian Mark Webber qualified on pole for the Spanish Grand Prix in a scintillating performance by his Red Bull team to lock out the front row.

Webber and his teammate Vettel completed a Red Bull 1-2 in a upgraded car that demolished closest rivals Ferrari and McLaren. Webber was almost a full second in front of third placed Lewis Hamilton.

Spaniard Fernando Alonso, at his home race in Barcelona, managed fourth place, whilst reigning world champion Jensen Button was fifth.

Michael Schumacher in a revised Mercedes GP car looked far more at home at a circuit where he has won six times before, and qualified in sixth.

This marks the first time in 2010 that he has qualified in front of his teammate Nico Rosberg, who could only manage eighth. Schumacher has shown all weekend he is more confident in the heavily modified Silver Arrow Mercedes, stating after qualifying “it’s clear the car suits my wishes”.

Robert Kubica qualified in seventh for Renault and was ahead of Felipe Massa who was not comfortable in his ninth placed Ferrari.

Kamui Kobayashi rounded out the top 10 with an improved performance in the thus far disappointing Sauber BMW Ferrari, which with three names is close to besting how many race laps Kobayashi has completed this season being a victim of reliability and incidents.

Outside the 10 was the midfield scrap. Adrian Sutil for Force India nabbed 11th while his teammate and the remaining Sauber and Renault, as well as Williams, Force India and Toro Rosso scrapped it out to start from positions 12 to 18.

Rubens Barrichello for Williams was the biggest casualty of the first qualifying session, being eliminated after throwing away a hot lap when poor radio reception meant he thought his engineer was telling him to abort.

The bottom six places were filled by usual suspects Lotus, Virgin and HRT. However, both Lotus and Virgin were boosted by new and modified cars. Lotus was the main beneficiary, opening up a full one second per lap advantage over Virgin and giving notice to the midpack teams that they aren’t too far behind.

Bruno Senna qualified in last place for HRT and complained of a massive oversteer issues. However, he and others will move up once penalties are applied.

A large number of penalties will be handed out for the provisional grid, with the Virgin team handed a five-place penalty for each car as the team failed to notify the FIA about its intended choice of gear ratios soon enough, and Vitaly Petrov for Renault will lose five spots from 14th after changing his gearbox and engine.