Red Bull ‘back’ as Vettel takes Bahrain pole

F1 News
Date: 21/April/2012

The Bahrain F1 Grand Prix finally got a story to take some attention away from the controversy surrounding the event, as reigning champion Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull returned to the top with pole position in Saturday’s qualifying session.

One of the surprises of the season so far has been the drop in relative form of the previously dominate Vettel/Red Bull combination, the young German managing just one podium and qualifying no higher than fifth during the opening three rounds.

That all changed on Saturday when Vettel claimed his 31st pole by a tenth of a second over McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, the world championship leader. Mark Webber completed Red Bull’s qualifying revival with third on the grid, also his best performance of the season.

“I think we had no reason to panic and equally now [we have pole] it’s not as if we are living in a different world,” said Vettel of his qualifying breakthrough. “We still know that we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

But Vettel did admit pole was a welcome reward after such a difficult start to 2012.

“It gives you a lot of energy knowing that if you work hard, you also get the rewards. Especially for the guys in the garage, working day and night, I think it’s good to be back on top. But we have a race tomorrow. That’s when we score points and not before.”

Reflecting on the year so far, Vettel added: “We didn’t have the start that maybe we expected and people probably expected of us.

“But since day one - where we realised that maybe we weren’t as strong as we wanted to be - we’ve worked very, very hard and this is step one towards the right direction.

“So we keep fighting and keep working hard to make sure that the results similar to today come more often again.

“I still think that for tomorrow other people are probably the favourites, but it’s a long race and a lot of things can happen.”

The issue of the anti-government protests continues to dominate this year’s event and Vettel also found himself being asked to comment upon the death of a protester, found dead following clashes with riot police on Friday night.

“It’s the first time that I’ve heard about it,” replied Vettel. “It’s always dreadful if someone dies, but I don’t know what happened so it’s difficult to comment.”

Most drivers have refused to comment on the protests.