Sebastian Vettel claimed a storming pole in Bahrain, one which he hadn’t expected to secure.
“A big surprise!” he exclaimed. “In winter testing no one really knew where we were. It was clear there were four teams were pretty strong, but close to each other.”
Vettel took the pole by a tenth of a second from Felipe Massa who out qualified Fernando Alonso.
Both Vettel and Webber had concerns with their limited running on Friday: “To be honest yesterday was a tough day for us, we had not as much running as we hoped for.
“Another long night, especially mechanics with not much sleep and a lot of long faces, but they were keen this morning to keep pushing.
“I knew we had a great car, but obviously first of all we had to get it together.
“Qualifying went pretty smoothly. I am very, very happy to be on pole, the boys didn’t get much sleep in the last month, a lot of testing in a short amount of time and to come here, where everybody shows how strong they are, and come out on top is a nice feeling.”
Vettel is hoping for a boring race tomorrow, which will see him transfer pole into a win and 25 championship points.
“I think we all don’t know what is going to be happen tomorrow yet, it could be very exciting, it could be very boring,” he said. “That is what I hope for! We want a calm race, all of us here would like to be where we start, it is a difficult situation to be in.
“The first part of the race will be crucial but there is no secret that you need to take care of tyres. All of us don’t know what to expect tomorrow.”
