Japanese Grand Prix Qualifying: Webber takes pole for Red Bull

Mark Webber has beaten his Red Bull team mate Sebastian Vettel to pole position in the 2013 Japanese Grand Prix.

It’s been a long time since Mark Webber took pole position in a Grand Prix, but luck was on the side of the seemingly perpetually unlucky Webber as a KERS problem took the edge of Vettel’s speed in Suzuka this morning.

Webber ended up beating his team mate by 0.174 seconds to take his first pole of the 2013 F1 season and make this the first time he’s out qualified Vettel this year too.

Behind the Red Bull pair, Lewis Hamilton took third place for Mercedes with Romain Grosjean giving Lotus a fourth place on the grid.

Felipe Massa put his Ferrari in to fifth place, but Fernando Alonso – the only man who can stop Vettel taking the drivers title this weekend – will start in eighth place, coincidentally exactly where he’ll need to finish to stop Vettel taking the title this weekend (assuming Vettel wins tomorrow’s race).

Between Massa and Alonso sit the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and the Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg, with Kimmi Raikkonen and Jenson Button making the last two top ten places.

Christian Horner, Red Bull boss, said:

It’s great to have secured front row for tomorrow’s race. It was a very strong performance by Mark today to claim his first pole of the year and Sebastian, despite the failure of KERS on his car, produced a great lap also to get onto the front row for tomorrow’s race.

We need to understand the issue with his car, as it’s the second session we had a KERS problem. Hopefully we can convert these very strong grid positions into a good points haul tomorrow.

At the other end of the grid, there was a notable success for Brit Max Chilton who managed to take 19th in the Marussia ahead of the Caterhams and his team mate.