Vettel breaks record to secure Indian pole

Sebastian Vettel once again proved to be the master of the Buddh International circuit as he set a new qualifying lap record to take pole position for the Indian Grand Prix.

The Infiniti Red Bull Racing driver, who appears set to secure his fourth world title this weekend, clocked a time more than seven tenths quicker than nearest rival Nico Rosberg.

Lewis Hamilton will head up row two alongside Mark Webber.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso struggled for one lap pace, setting only the eighth fastest time.

Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo narrowly missed out on qualifying for Q3 and will start Sunday’s race from 11th on the grid.

Vettel looked in ominous form in both Q1 and Q2 as he set the quickest times.

However, there was a big surprise in Q1 as a tyre gamble to use the medium compound, rather than the quicker soft, late in session saw Romain Grosjean fail to qualify for Q2.

The Frenchman has been arguably the ‘best of the rest’ in recent weeks and was looking promising to continue his strong run of form after setting the fourth fastest time in Friday Practice.

Q2 also saw the demise of both Force India’s of Paul Di Resta and Adrian Sutil. Jean Eric Vergne, Valteri Bottas and Esteban Guttierrez also failed to make the grade.

Vettel, on soft tyres, pulled out all the stops in the final ten minute session and by posting a new record time of 1m24.119s with five minutes remaining, he gave the rest a tall order to beat.

In the end, it was the Mercedes duo that came the closest with Rosberg just pipping Hamilton to second by less than a tenth. Mark Webber, who spent the majority of the session on mediums, was fourth; nearly a second adrift of his team mate.

Felipe Massa out-qualified his team mate to secure fifth spot just ahead of Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus with Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg seventh. McLaren duo of Sergio Perez and Jenson Button rounded out the top 10.

See below for the full practice result