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Vettel Takes Pole In Delayed Qualifying Session In Australia

MELBOURNE, Australia- Nearly waiting a full day to
resume qualifying after the first session was delayed due to heavy rain; Sebastian
Vettel had no problem adjusting to the changing conditions, and on a dry track
Sunday morning, took the first pole of the 2013 season, recording a final lap
time of 1:27:407, just seconds from the end of qualifying. Teammate and home
town driver Mark Webber placed second, four tenths of a second behind, while
Lewis Hamilton in his first qualifying outing in his Mercedes, took third.
Vettel had just finished which was good enough to
take another hot lap, and certainly had more power in his car to do better, but
the conditions were just too risky.

“Definitely not easy in these
conditions,” Vettel said.

After finishing the first session the day before,
the second session began with cloudy skies, but still possibilities of rain.
However, the track was drying from the night before with still some patches of
wet still around. Most drivers went into intermediate tires right from the
start, but as all the remaining drivers continued driving on the course, most
were thinking on changing to supersofts, and Mexican Sergio Perez was the first
brave driver to try this, followed by teammate Jenson Button. But the Briton found
out quickly that it was not such as good idea, sliding off the course and
returning to the pits for the intermediates. It proved to be a good decision,
as Button stayed in the top ten and advance to the final session.

Nico Hulkenberg, Adrian Sutil, Jean-Eric Vergne,
Daniel Riccardo, Perez and Valtteri Bottas all failed to advance, as Nico
Rosberg set the quickest time of 1:36:194, followed by Webber, Hamilton and
Button.

In the final session, Button once again dived in for
supersofts, but his luck was not with him this time, and the McLaren driver
could only manage 10th. Just minutes from the end, all drivers went
for supersofts in a last minute gamble for pole position. And it was Vettel,
who remained the luckiest to take his first pole of the season.

The Ferrari pair of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso
were the leaders of the rest of the grid, taking fourth and fifth,
respectively, while Rosberg was sixth. Another pair of drivers from another team,
this time for Lotus, Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean, finished respectively in
seventh and eighth. Paul Di Resta was ninth in his Force India entry.

“I had two good runs, one on inters
and one on dries.” Vettel continued afterwards. “The car felt very good,
similar to Friday. It is pretty difficult to find the limit in these conditions
but I was happy with the lap. As soon as I got confirmation that it was enough,
I pulled in to save the tires.”

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