Sebastian Vettel on pole for Indian GP

Sebastian Vettel has taken pole position for the inaugural Indian Grand Prix – establishing a new benchmark of 16 poles in a single season for Red Bull Racing.

Vettel was supreme in the final 10 minutes of the qualifying session, setting times of 1:24.44s and 1:24.18s during his two single lap runs.

With next-best Lewis Hamilton only managing 1:26.43s, either of Vettels laps would have been good enough for pole.

Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button  rounded out the top five in the session, and will all benefit from Hamilton’s three-place grid penalty for failing to slow for yellow flags in Friday practice.

Felipe Massa, Nico Rosberg, Adrian Sutil, Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari rounded out the top 10, with the final three drivers choosing not to complete a flying lap in Q3 in order to save an extra set of tyres for the race.

The session ended in dramatic circumstances, with Felipe Massa making minor head-on contact with the Turn 10 exit wall having broken his right-front suspension on the kerbing at Turn 9.

Button improved to fifth fastest on his final run, in which he passed the scene of Massa’s accident.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo qualified 21st, but will take a five-place grid penalty for a pre-qualifying gearbox change.

Renault’s Vitaly Petrov will also start five places lower than he qualified courtesy of his collision with Michael Schumacher in the Korean Grand Prix, while Sergio Perez joined Hamilton in being penalised three places for failing to obey the yellow flags in Practice 1.

Local hero Narain Karthikeyan has also felt the wrath of the stewards, with a five-place grid drop handed to the Hispania driver for impeding Michael Schumacher in Q1. Schumacher managed to progress through to Q2 regardless of the Indian’s actions, before managing just 12th in Q2 – almost a full second adrift of team-mate Nico Rosberg.

See below for the full qualifying result

See below for Speedcafe.com’s Indian Grand Prix Race Guide