Sebastian Vettel grabbed Pole with ease. Red Bull 1-2 shows no effect from Engine Mapping

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Qualifying, European Grand Prix , Valencia Street Circuit, Spain

With 7poles out of 8 this season, Sebastian Vettel increases his pole tally to 22. His shear pace saw him outqualifying everbody else on track in Q2 and Q3. He was the only driver to cross 1min 36sec barrier.

As the 10min shootout of Q3 started Alonso, Massa, Vettel, Webber, Button and Hamilton all set out to set the pace. But Vettel 1min 36.975sec a lap surprised them all. It provisionally provided him the pole position and hampered the hopes of many drivers.

Mercedes did not look to try any harder to give away the rubber. Heidfeld and Sutil did not come on track to waste any more set of tyres.

It was Mark Webber who locked the first row for Red Bull as he snatched the 2nd grid position from Hamilton in the final run. Mark Webber though starting at P2 tomorrow, he just saved himself from out qualifying again in Q1 this season.

Ferrari who were looking quite strong during the practice session were outqualified by Hamilton pace and will start at 4th and 5th position. Felipe Massa was the fastest man on track in Q1, he used his new option tyres to save himself an embarrassment of not qualifying in Q1.

Jenson Button, last race winner lost the most as he could not better his 6th positioned.

Mercedes were not able to compete with the pace of Red Bull, Mclaren and Ferrari and will start at 4th row.

But afterall, Red Bull had used all the fresh tyres. May be others have advantage tomorrow.

It was a humid and hot outing for the drivers as the track temperature rose to 45deg Celsius before the qualifying ended.

Heidfeld will start at 9th position. Alongside him, will be Force India Adrian Sutil.

Adrian Sutil 10th position came as a shocker for all specially for Renault driver Vitaly Petrov who was outqualified by Sutil in the dying moments of the Q2 as the flag had been waved off. His teammate Paul Di Resta also drove exceptionally well and will start at 12th position behind Vitaly Petrov.

Rubens Barrichello outqualified his teammate this time around and will start at 13th. Maldonado spun his car during Q2 and brought Red Flag out. His car was air lifted before the race could get restarted. But still Maldonado had set the time which allowed him to start at 15th ahead of Sergio Perez and Sebastien Buemi.

Sauber is struggling with pace as both Kobayashi and Perez could only managed to position at P14 and P16.

9th row will be shared by Toro Rosso drivers of Buemi and Alguersuari. Alguersuari again failed to qualify for Q2.

Behind them, Team Lotus drivers shares the 10th grid. Jarno Trulli spun his Lotus car at the pit entry as the Q1 ends to which he comment that he is not pushing too hard at the moment and he is happy that Lotus is improving.

Virgin drivers are again separated by HRT Vitantonio Liuzzi who wil start the race 22nd ahead of Jerome D'Ambosio.

Indian Driver Narain Karthikeyan was last and 24th.

All the drivers qualified the 107% rule.

As FIA regulation for no change in engine mapping, drivers will be running on same engine tweaks and setups for tomorrow race. This could well change the racing scenario tomorrow. But at the moment it looks like, Red Bull is not at all effected by Engine Mapping and had blown away all the speculation regarding their strategy.

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull - Renault	1min 39.116sec	1min 37.305sec	1min 36.975sec	15
2	Mark Webber	Red Bull - Renault	1min 19.956sec	1min 38.058sec	1min 37.163sec	19
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mclaren - Mercedes	1min 39.244sec	1min 37.727sec	1min 37.380sec	13
4	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1min 39.725sec	1min 37.930sec	1min 37.454sec	20
5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1min 38.413sec	1min 38.566sec	1min 37.535sec	20
6	Jenson Button	Mclaren - Mercedes	1min 39.453sec	1min 37.749sec	1min 37.645sec	14
7	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1min 39.266sec	1min 38.373sec	1min 38.231sec	15
8	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1min 39.198sec	1min 38.365sec	1min 38.240sec	18
9	Nick Heidfeld	Renault	1min 39.877sec	1min 38.781sec		17
10	Adrian Sutil	Force India -Mercedes	1min 39.329sec	1min 39.034sec		14
11	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1min 39.690sec	1min 39.068sec		14
12	Paul Di Resta	Force India -Mercedes	1min 39.852sec	1min 39.422sec		16
13	Rubens Barrichello	Williams -Cosworth	1min 39.602sec	1min 39.489sec		19
14	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber - Ferrari	1min 40.131sec	1min 39.525sec		17
15	Pastor Maldonado	Williams -Cosworth	1min 39.690sec	1min 39.645sec		10
16	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	1min 39.494sec	1min 39.657sec		13
17	Sebastien Buemi	STR - Ferrari	1min 39.679sec	1min 39.711sec		8
18	Jaime Alguersuari	STR - Ferrari	1min 40.232sec			5
19	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Renault	1min 41.664sec			10
20	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Renault	1min 42.234sec			9
21	Timo Glock	Virgin -Cosworth	1min 42.553sec			9
22	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT - Cosworth	1min 43.584sec			10
23	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Virgin -Cosworth	1min 43.735sec			6
24	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT - Cosworth	1min 44.363sec			9

107percent Qualifying Rule Time: 1min 45.301sec.