By Ian Lockwood
May 7 2011

Red Bull Racing secured their first lock out of the front row this season in todays qualifying for the Turkish Grand Prix. This is what the team had to say.

Car 1 SEBASTIAN VETTEL, Position: POLE POSITION (3rd Practice – P1, 1:26.037)

“I’m very happy. It was a bit funny in Q3 today, as both Mark and I decided we would skip the second run and so we finished earlier than normal. It was a strange feeling, as the other cars are on track setting times and you are in the garage watching – they might beat you, but you can only watch the screens and there’s nothing you can do. It was an odd feeling but a good decision to save tyres for tomorrow’s race. I messed up the car yesterday morning, so we missed the session in the afternoon, but the guys fixed it for today and I think they did a very good job. We have been up there with the times today, although we didn’t have a trouble free morning and we had a bit to catch up. I like the track here which helps and it was nice to see that, without many laps, I was able to come back and find the rhythm, so all-in-all I’m very happy today.”

Car 2 MARK WEBBER, Position: 2nd (3rd Practice – P3, 1:26.404)

“I would have liked to have got a couple more tenths to have the margin; obviously Sebastian did a very good lap for pole, but my lap wasn’t too bad. We spoke before qualifying and decided that, as tomorrow is going to be a long race, every lap you could save today might help tomorrow. It turns out that we’re in the best possible grid positions and the team did a good job, as we have saved a set of tyres too, so it’s looking good. There were some good decisions from the team. I’m happy with today and am looking forward to tomorrow’s race.”

CHRISTIAN HORNER:

“A great team performance today and a fantastic come back from Sebastian after a challenging day yesterday. All the guys worked very hard to make sure the car was ready for this morning and Sebastian repaid them in the best possible way – with an excellent lap on his first run to get the pole. Mark was right up there too and we have secured the front row of the grid. We elected not to do a second run with both drivers; we knew it would be a little tight, but strategically we believe it was the right thing to do, as both drivers now have a new set of tyres available for tomorrow’s race.”  

(Renault) CYRIL DUMONT:

“A really good result today – it’s nice to lock out the front row again. It was a good performance from Sebastian, and even more so when you consider his lack of running yesterday. Mark also did a good job today, so we look forward to the race tomorrow. It was pretty smooth for the engines today – so we will see in the race.”