German in pole position — literally — to claim fourth world title.
Saturday's qualifying session didn’t really throw up many surprises with Sebastian Vettel taking pole position once again — his seventh of the season and a third in as many years in India. So dominant was the German that he clocked 1 minute, 24.119 seconds, more than half-a-second faster than countryman Nico Rosberg of Mercedes GP.
Rosberg’s teammate Lewis Hamilton took third position and was followed by Mark Webber, Felipe Massa, Kimi Raikkonen, Nico Hulkenberg, Fernando Alonso, Sergio Perez and Jenson Button. The Force Indias of Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil will start from 12th and 13th places while the only real surprise dropout came in Q1 with Romain Grosjean ending up 17th fastest.
It actually turned out to be a surprise qualifying session in terms of the track conditions on Saturday with track evolution progressing at an unprecedented pace compared to the previous two editions of the Indian GP. The skies remained delightfully clear, too, instead of the constant haze that we’ve gotten used to seeing here earlier. It was Grosjean’s Lotus that fell prey to the conditions earlier on though as the team sent him out on the white medium compound tyres while the drivers on the much grippier yellow soft compounds started lapping faster and faster.
For Sunday's race, Vettel starts exactly where he wants to start from, but his untarnished Indian record of leading every single lap ever raced at the Buddh International Circuit could be under threat this time round. Even if Vettel gets a clean getaway at the start, his soft compound tyres could last only about 10 laps before he has to pit to switch to the medium compound tyres.
Vettel looks in great shape to clinch his fourth consecutive world championship on Sunday. The same goes for Red Bull in the constructors’ crown and the only way the decider can get postponed to the next race in Abu Dhabi is if Red Bull really mess things up either in strategy, or with reliability issues — both of which don’t seem to have bothered them all year round.
While the top of the grid seems pretty much resigned to fighting it out for top spots behind Vettel, Alonso (who will start eighth on medium compound tyres) could stir up things as well
And then there will be Grosjean attempting to pass as many cars as he can to move up into a place more deserving of the Lotus. With the Indian GP off the calendar in 2014, apart from some highly engaging racing action, a world Champion being crowned here on Sunday could just be the silver lining that India needs till the venue returns to the F1 calendar in the future.
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