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Seven out of eight poles for Vettel

Vettel continues his undisputed domination in qualifying as he managed to secure his seventh pole, out of eighth possible, in Valencia. Tomorrow the German will start the European GP once again on the front lane together with his team-mate Mark Webber.

After the first attempt on Q3 Vettel’s team mate was only fifth, but as the only driver able to improve on his time on the second run he managed to climb up to the front line.

The two Red Bulls will be followed on the second line by McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso from Ferrari. As the season progresses the Ferraris seem to be closer and closer to the front runners as the two Scuderia drivers were able to qualify on the top five, with Massa in fifth place. The Brazilian will split the third lane by Jenson Button.

The Brit was followed by the two Mercedes who opted to make only one attempt on Q3, with Nico Rosberg getting ahead of his team-mate by only 0.09 seconds.

The two other drivers making the cut to Q3 were Nick Heidfeld and Adrian Sutil, who didn’t register any time on the last part of the qualifying session. While Sutil opted not to drive on Q3, Heidfeld was on a fast lap when a small mistake forced him to abort his attempt.

It was only in the last instants of Q2 that Sutil managed to qualify for the third round of qualifying. With that move Renault’s Vitaly Petrov was thrown out of Q3, making him the biggest surprise in the first two rounds.

Joining Petrov on lane six is Paul di Resta, the Brit being followed by Rubens Barrichello and Kamui Kobayashi.

Although he caused a brief red flag on qualifying, after he stopped in the middle of the track, Pastor Maldonado still managed to qualify in 15th spot ahead of returning Sergio Pérez and Sebastien Buemi.

Once again Jaime Alguersuari was the upper midfield driver not to make the cut on Q1. The Spaniard finished 18th ahead of the two Lotus, with Kovalainen ahead of Jarno Trulli.

With everyone making the 107% cut, Tonio Liuzzi splitted the two Virgins to finish 23th ahead of Jerome D’Ambrosio and his team-mate Karthikeyan.

Results, Qualifying European GP

Position	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	1m36.975
2.	Mark Webber	Red Bull	1m37.163	+ 0.188
3.	Lewis Hamilton	Ferrari	1m37.380	+ 0.405
4.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1m37.454	+ 0.479
5.	Felipe Massa	McLaren	1m37.535	+ 0.560
6.	Jenson Button	McLaren	1m37.645	+ 0.670
7.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m38.231	+ 1.256
8.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1m38.240	+ 1.265
9.	Nick Heidfeld	Lotus Renault	No time
10.	Adrian Sutil	Force India	No time
Q2 Cut-Off time: 1m39.034
11.	Vitaly Petrov	Lotus Renault	1m39.068	+ 1.763
12.	Paul di Resta	Force India	1m39.422	+ 2.117
13.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams	1m39.525	+ 2.184
14.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	1m39.645	+ 2.220
15.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	1m39.657	+ 2.340
16.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber	1m39.711	+ 2.352
17.	Sebastien Buemi	Toro Rosso		+ 2.406
Q1 Cut-Off time: 1m40.131
18.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso	1m40.232	+ 1.819
19.	Heikki Kovalainen	Team Lotus	1m41.664	+ 3.251
20.	Jarno Trulli	Team Lotus	1m42.234	+ 3.821
21.	Timo Glock	Virgin	1m42.553	+ 4.140
22.	Tonio Liuzzi	HRT	1m43.584	+ 5.171
23.	Jerome D'Ambrosio	Virgin	1m43.735	+ 5.322
24.	Nahrain Karthikeyan	HRT	1m44.363	+ 5.950