Webber beats Vettel to secure Korean pole

Mark Webber surprised this Saturday his teammate Sebastian Vettel to conquer pole position for the Korean Grand Prix. The Australian stole what looked like another certain pole for the German on the last lap, but still Red Bull secured the first row on the grid for tomorrow's race.

Vettel dominated completely the three stages of qualification and seemed destined to another pole position, with an advantage of three tenths over everyone, but in the final moments managed to improve his time in five tenths of a second, finishing with a time of 1m37.242s. This achievement was also the 200th pole position conquered by Renault, the engine supplier for Red Bull.

Vettel still had one last chance to beat his teammate, but a slower first sector prevented the double world champion to conquer the pole. He improved his time and at the end of the session the two Red Bull drivers were separated by 0.074s.

During Q3 current championship leader Fernando Alonso was in a position to secure a spot on the first row, but improvements from Hamilton and Webber eventually threw him into fourth place.

The updated Lotus were stronger this Saturday and Raikkonen and Grosjean reached fifth and seventh places, with Ferrari's Felipe Massa separting the two drivers.

Nico Hulkenberg of Force India was eighth, ahead of the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher.

The biggest surprise of the day was the fact that Jenson Button was unable to get into the last part of qualifying. In Q2 the McLaren driver made a mistake in his first run and the second attempt was hampered by yellow flags that arose following Daniel Ricciardo pulling out with transmission problems. Jenson Button will start in tomorrow's race in 11th position.