The US Grand Prix - Qualifying Formula 1

As long as you make sure you do that, it is impossible to fail.

Away we go. * outing from the pit lane, this is scrapping for a few

points. Nico Rosberg is out. The safety car

has been deployed. That has definitely damaged his front wing.

Can he challenge? Sebastian Vettel eventually gets it.

What is going on? Alonso is in second place. What a

break. It has all gone horribly wrong.

This closes it all up together and suddenly Sebastian Vettel will be

with the race leaders. Try to find away past Jenson Button, for a

podium position. He might have done it this time!

Beautifully done! Alonso it is charging, looking for victory.

Can you tell me when it gets to the end, I am covering my eyes in

excitement. He had done it, lichen and wins --

Raikonnen. Sebastian Vettel retains Championship. Red Bull still have

Let us focus on Ferrari, they must have been thinking, this is our

moment. But that opportunity was blown out of the water. You say

that but they have been around a long time. They know that anything

is possible in Formula One. Fernando, he knew that was a great

drive from his point of view. He has had an amazing year. It is

about delivering year-end, yet out. Let us look inside the Red Bull

garage. He will know, with two He's known that for some time, but

they kept falling over themselves in my view. If I had to pick a

driver, it's Alonso, because he's made an average car look extremely

good. And the circuit is sliply still? And also the morning

practice was held in really cold conditions here in Texas, but the

sun is now on the track, so they're heading into completely different

conditions. So let's see how that Formula One is back indeed, back in

the USA, but can anyone prevent Sebastian Vettel taking another

step towards the title as qualifying begins here? He has been

fastest in every session out so far. Gary, what can we except to see in

this first action? I think it's going to be very good. Practice

three this morning was very difficult, it was very cold. It

took four or five laps to get the soft tyres working.

They're going to have to be out here on hard tyres going for the

whole run. I wouldn't be surprised to see these guys running for the

whole 20 minutes just to get the tyres warmed. The surface is

changing. It is now a lot harder but I think you'd have to do a 37.9

to feel considerate comfortable. And the track changes dramatically

as it gets rubbered in. So the first two cars are out on

the track and they're in danger of not making the 1.7% qualifying rule.

And they are the hard and the compound tyres and the track is

proving to be slippery, so Pirelli have probable blow made a tyre too

hard for this track, but they had to make their decision a fou months

ago before they knew how it would be for the teams.

In fairness to them, they have to make the decision from a

manufacturing and shipping point of view a long way ahead of time and

the Tarmac is one of the last things to get completed at any of

the Grand Prix sites, so they can't come with an exotic machine to

grade the Tarmac. I'm sure it has a name, but I don't know it off the

top of my head. Perez was talking about driving and

racing so close to home. He's never raced so close to his family and

they're pretty much here this weekend? And he's only 22, so he

hasn't done much racing. Everything must be new and exciting. He looked

ragged this morning. He had contact with one of the other cars. There's

Barcelo, spreading rumours that he might be coming back!

No action was taken. He was not reprimanded for what happened, but

Perez did pick up a penalty for weaving yesterday. So everybody is

watching. The lap time Raikkonen did this

morning was 1.37.7 and it looks as though they've gone out on scrub

tyres. Certainly on Grosjean's car.

Gary was explaining it is taking a long time to get the shine off

these tyres. There is a release agent to get them out of the mould,

and that's gone by the first corner, but here it is taking longer. The

tyres are getting lightly buffed. So if you imagine using a fine

piece of emery paper, it will take a lot longer to buff down the

surface than if you had a rasp or something with more friction.

And you can see Vettel there. He always changes his helmet when he

wins a Grand Prix and he's gone for a rustic look with this one.

Ricciardo the young Australian has put in strong performances in

recent events in terms of scoring points. He's scored in five of the

last seven events. Vettel on track at the moment as we wait to see

what the Red Bull is capable of doing.

Right now I think all 24 cars are out on track and trying to spread

themselves around this 3.4 mile track down through turn 19 and 20.

So coming around to complete the lap here for Sebastian Vettel.

Let's see where this initial run puts him. I don't think it's right

up front. No, second to Grosjean. There's a gap of three tenth s of a

second. It's a wide spwreed entry into that corner. Well, there's a

view held that if they given a wide entry it will bring people down

inside. But I think give them a wide exit and you'll have more of a

chance of someone diving down the outside.

If you dive down inside someone you might lose not only that place back,

but another as well. Grosjean is fastest and Messiah is second now.

Webber third and Senna currently fifth.

We're beginning to see more improvements as the tyres get

softer. The battle is to get in the top 17. Hamilton is not there yet.

He's on a different lap. I don't think he was impeded there at all.

You don't want to see cars going slowly in front of you. See the

amount of black marks there in the run-off area. If that was gravel

you wouldn't see people trying to be quite so greedy. So the off side

of having Tarmac run-offs is it makes people safer.

Vettel goes fastest now. Sebastian Vettel, no surprise, has taken over

three tenths of a second out of Grosjean who is pushed back into

Some of those in the drop zone have not yet established a lap time.

Through that long right-hander. They're comparing it as being the

Turkey connection, through turn 20 a classic second-gear corner. And

you can see the elevation change with the camera angle. There's 40m

up into turn one. Alonso at the moment has not looked as

comfortable in the morning sessions as Messiah, it has to be said, but

you can never not expect Fernando to get the maximum out of what he

is given to drive. Maldonado was third quickest this

morning. We've seen some good qualifying performances from him

and he's closest to home here than he has been all year and has a lot

of supporters here. That's good commitment on entry and

tidy into turn 20. Early on the throttle. He gets on to the

artificial grass, which will cost him celebration, but he is down in

third place. It's a good effort. What is Schumacher doing? The

Mercedes might be better at United Statesing their tyres here.

12th, we might have expected a bit more than that. Rosberg was fifth

this morning. He is second. So it's a Red Bull

one/two at the moment. Who is in the drop zone? Glock, and

Ricciardo, Kobayashi and tarttart and Petrov. -- Karthikeyan.

It's a reasonable job from Jean- Eric Vergne he clipped a car in the

morning session. But he just went straight and thankfully didn't hit

anything, but that would have caught his attention. So a

reasonable recovery in this first This is Rosberg. It's a great

section. It is. Unfortunately, that's not a great car. If you

listen how long he was off the throttle. Fifth gear rolled into

one of the turns and shifted into the apex. That's got, "I'm not

comfortable and I'm not in control of this machine" written all over

Now, there's a problem with the HRT. Let's hope that doesn't cause a

yellow in that section. Meanwhile, Senna has gone up to fourth. So

Williams are fourth and fifth at the moment. Rosberg trying to move

up out of 17th place, which is danger territory in terms of

possibly being eliminated from qualifying. Hamilton is eighth rges

but has just set the fastest middle section of anybody. Nigh it's Red

Bull ahead of Webber. And I would - they are still both out on track,

so they've not settled with what they've done so far. Hamilton has

just gone fastest. Rosberg out of the final turn. Across the line

goes Rosburg. He's still down in 17th place. Work to be done there.

He's in the drop zone right now as we see Vettel coming to the end of

his lap. He's been fastest of all in the middle sector with a

personal best. Look at that,ess's fastest by half a second.

That's still not quite as quick as he was this morning, but he was on

the softer compound tyre when this set that time this morning.

It's the danger territory for Rosburg countryly and the yellow

flag is out. That's down into turn two, so given that that corner is a

flat out corner it's difficult for the driveners. You have to

demonstrate that you haven't gone faster in that particular yellow

flag zone. And Rosburg, 26.8, that is slower than his best because of

that yellow flag. That's seven tenths slower. So a lot for Rosburg

to try and do in the rest of the lap. He's gone green in the middle

sector, which means that is his personal best as we join him here.

He had a great qualifying performance last time out in Abu

Dhabi, but he's desperate for a performance like that here, and

with that yellow flag not helping, has he done enough? He's just done

it. He's in 17th place and pushed Ricciardo down and out. Ricciardo

is still out on a lap, so he is not going that kpwickly. And he's --

quickly. And he's missed the checker now. Yes, there's a

surprise. Daniel reckon yardeo pushed out in Q1. And Jean-Eric

Vergne has beaten, Kobayashi and Karthikeyan.

But Karthikeyan has not qualified in the first time and that is

disappointing. He's in a sort of picking up rubber mood and saving

fuel. I think he's having so little fun driving that car, he's backing

right out of it. And Glock 19th ahead of his team meat. Even though

there is a long straight, those two cars have been outdone by the

maturitions. Well done for this. They're trying to create the

foundations of future success and it's been a pretty rough ride for

HRT in the past few years. Eddie, that was a pretty special

session if you're a Maruss ia driver. I'm not surprised. Pat

Simmonds is in the team and it's showing all the signs of his hands

What is the deal with the facial hair? Nobody can do that? I thought

I'd give it a go, but it hasn't worked for me today. What was the

problem out there today? Just a bit of everything, a bit of traffic and

a bit of yell yes flag and not really getting the tyres to work.

You definitely need time to get them up here, and definitely we

found we needed a lot of time on the track to get any performance

out of them here, and we didn't get them in the range. Because you've

got a contract next year has that taken too much stress out of it,

and the signs are that you didn't make the cut here today. If you

hadn't signed, would you have made the cut? Not at all. I take it as

serious as always and I am' - although I'm cracking a smile, I'm

pretty angry right now. OK. We'll let you take your anger back to the

team. Good luck for tomorrow. That's a point, he's not the kind

of guy who takes that all for granted. When he said that, his jaw

slightly changed and I could see he was rainging with herself. He's

very upset. You need to put a big stamp on a new track and want to

make an impression. And sadly, he can do it in the race of course,

but he'll want to be further up the grid. Angry with himself. Now the

second part of qualifying. Sebastian Vettel so far has a 100%

record here. Fastest in Q1, but still Q2 and Q3 to go. I think

we'll see more of the same in this second part of qualifying? Yes, I

think you'll see most people go out with a soft tyre on now because

this is a real battle. That was a fantastic time from Vettel. He can

do 36.45 on softer tyres. For this session it's very difficult to

predict because the track is changing all the time. I wouldn't

feel comfortable if I hadn't gone under 37.5. It will be a push for

some of these guys. Kimi Raikkonen down through turn 10. Down towards

the hairpin that leads on to the long straight. A wide entry again

and a slight lock-up there? Yes, he went wide but he got the car turned.

So far, unsurprisingly, he is the only man who has actually completed

that first sector quickly. He's gone purple in this first session.

You have to say, in his comeback season he has not made any mistakes.

He's never an addressive driver in terms of banging wheels and locking

up the car. Yes, he uses the feel of the steering wheel, but it seems

the feel is not quite right for him. He drives on his fingers and thumbs

and maybe they'll get it right for him next season.

Earlier on, Kimi Raikkonen was definitely four tenths of a second

slower than that, so he has gained good pace on what he did earlier.

This is the lock-up into turn 11 hairpin. He had to correct as the

corner drops away. It's reminiscent for me to turn 4 in Brazil. As it

dips down you lighten the load on the rear axle.

Even on the softer tyres it's taking a couple of laps to find the

balance. What will the teams do to generate more from the tyres.

not so much the tyre temperature as tyre balance front to rear. Going

out of the pits the tyres are difficult to warm up. You'll get

the rears warmed quickly but the front take longer and you don't

have that front tyre bite and that's why it takes a couple of

laps to bite. Go for the third lap fast. That's

the best way to do it. Grosjean went faster than anyone in the

first section. He has a penalty to contend with, but he can still go

as fast as possible and make it into the top ten.

It's worth going for as much as you can, and Grosjean has had an up and

down season. He's not had the consistency of rake ribbing rake.

He's shown flashes of speed, but we want to see them again. We haven't

seen them in the past couple of races. No, he's had the full

psychological ride in his career as Formula One. He's been in and out

and banned from a race and you wonder how many more blows he can

take and it has affected his true skill. Oh. He ran wide into turn 20

there. Inherently he is a fast racing driver, but he's just made

some bad decisions in his on-track racing. What is going on with

Alonso? A bit of traffic, is that a Mercedes ahead? The Blue Flag is

flashing. He's obviously feeling I was about to say that's probably

Michael, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt one more time.

There do seem to be a few incidents like that. Schumacher - Hamilton

had to get all four wheels off the road yesterday to avoid Schumacher

yesterday. It's all about the battle to get in

the top ten here, but it is still early stages. Not everybody has set

a time. Fourth fastest for Alonso. Well it was, but already there are

changes. Massa is still looking good here at the moment. Does this

get him into the top spot, yes, Hamilton quicker than he went in

the earlier session, but he is on the softer of the two compound

tyres. Beautifully on to the clipping

point and back down the hill on the other side.

Sebastian Vettel meanwhile has done a 1.41 opening lap, that puts him

in tenth place at this time. So clearly several seconds away from

the current pace. So let's keep an eye on the rest of this lap. In

terms of time left, well, just under six minutes and it looks like

there's Mark Webber there, has done a 36.8, so just under a tenth

slower than Lewis Hamilton. So we have to says, based on the majority

of the season this year, that Vettel is capable of beating that.

Section one, Vettel looking very, very good indeed.

11 for Rosburg, so he is still in danger territory there, outside of

the top ten. Gary, do you think there is one sector that is

dominant to the others in terms of getting a quick lap time?

they're all important. But on the last sector, Vettel just picked up

three or four so he's really got that handled. In that lap there, he

wasn't really abusing the car too much. Alonso down in 13th place at

the moment, but Vettel this is going to be a quick lap. He was the

fastest in sector two as well. And he's fastest overall in that final

sector. That's definitely the fastest we've

seen of the day, 1.35.9. And the margin back to Hamilton is huge.

Now, the other Red Bull. What is this looking like? This looks like

it could be the same, if not slower. This is 3.8, virtually the same.

A loss of power for Button. Oh, dramas for McLaren in terms of

riblt? We'll see what happens with that. Button has got through the

first sector OK. - reliability. Alonso, they are running slightly

different rear body work on the two Ferraris. Slightly different

between Alonso and Massa's cars. Right now, Massa is fifth and

Alonso is outside the top ten. Is that Button? He is going very

slowly indeed, but has he a problem or is he looking for space? I'm not

sure. Massa has now dropped back to sixth.

Button, we have to assume, based on the message and the way he was

driving that he clearly feels he has to limp that car back to the

pits. He's in the middle sector as we speak. He's just gone through

the middle sector a full 30 seconds slower than the fastest time, sew

we're expecting him to limp in. Button has been dropped to tenth

place, so he's going to lose a chance of being in the top ten and

around this track it will be very difficult to come back from in the

race. There's no cable connecting the throttle and the engine. It's a

fibre wire system, like on an aircraft, but they feel the need to

have a look. It could be that something has broken, the actual

stop that the driver can have individually, as to whether they

have 5 or 20mm of travel. thoughts on what might be the

problem for Jenson Button? It's a Rotary electric pod that givings a

significantle to -- signal to the engine. And the gears wouldn't

change so it looks like an electronic issue with the throttle

pedal somewhere. He's sitting in a very vulnerable position, but it

will have to go in the garage. tenth at the moment, but I doubt if

John Button, Jenson's father, trying to work out what has

happened. Michael Schumacher has gone fifth fastest. That's a good

effort in the Mercedes. Rosburg is struggling and he's not

set a first sector so with a minute to go, that's his effort and he'll

start 16th. A pretty impressive lap from Michael Schumacher. We were

saying ahead of the qualifying session that Mercedes does work the

tyres a bit harder, and that's a problem with the hotter races, but

on this cooler track temperature he seems to have found his own.

Kimi Raikkonen is down in tenth place, he has one more chance to

get another lap in. Across the line is Kobayashi, he's not going to

improve. The clock continues to tick away. Button is definitely not

going to be in the top ten. And di Resta is definitely out of it too.

I'm watching Perez and he's not on a particularly good lap here. 17th

place. Outqualified once again by Kobayashi. And feeling why am I

being overlooked. Let's see what Alonso does. He's in the top ten,

safely, that's what matters. What about Senna. He is 13th, so not far

off the top ten. His teammate is currently ninth and the chequered

flag is out. He's looking slower. He's gone negative then positive.

It's all about this last corner. Here comes Senna, desperate to get

into the top ten this year. It's not enough. 11th place for him. And

still one or two others to see the chequered flag. Perez has a

personal best in the middle sector. This could be an improvement, but

it isn't enough. He goes 15th. But he does outqualify his teammate,

that will give him some credit. Two tenths of a second ahead of

Kobayashi. But I don't think Kobayashi will improve.

A good evident from Jean-Eric Vergne, there. He's beaten the two

Salvos and the merits December. And how come Schumacher is faster than

Rosburg? That's a bigger gap than we normally see, so there is

something effecting Rosburg's car. Button with a car problem. Jean-

Eric Vergne and Kamui Kobayashi are out as well. Jenson, could I have a

word please? Another race, another technical problem? Yeah, I don't

know what the problem is exactly. It will take a little while to

figure it out, but I just loss power. On the second to last corner

I had a massive oversteer moment but luckily I completed the lap, or

I wouldn't have had a time. It's not how you want to start the

weekend. Hopefully we'll sort it out and we won't have any of these

issues next year. And the pace of the car this weekend? Nice shirt.

Thank you, but the pace of the car? The pace is good, I still think the

Red Bull is stronger, but the car is good, especially through the

first sector, it's fun to drive. Difficult for Jenson there, and

clearly wanting to deflect attention from him on to my shirt.

But they've had problems? They've had too many problems and that

could have been one of the many reasons why Louis decided to take a

different stance and take his chance with Mercedes. One never

knows what is going on in their heads, but I'm sure that was one of

the many items niggling away at him. Well, it doesn't look like there

will be a fight for pole position, because Vettel is far ahead.

anyone was in any doubt about how good this guy is, look at the times.

Everyone is doing their utmost here. It's a brand new track and

everybody is doing their best, and look who is right out in front --

Vettel is there. The final part of qualifying is

under way. Ten minutes to decide the outcome of the top ten places

on the grid. Jenson Button is in 12th place, although there are some

penalties to mix up the order. Michael Schumacher is out on the

track, he's not hanging around at all But does Mercedes have the

likes to challenge McLaren and Red Bull? I doubt it. It does look like

a lottery with the Mercedes. This morning was good, and on the two

sessions 38.8 on Q1, and 35 on Q2, but he didn't get anywhere at all.

Michael improved his time from this morning, dramatically and got

himself into that position, eighth in that section, and Rosburg didn't

get there at all. So it seems a lottery. And I'm not sure why.

interesting, David, for example, Massa has been faster than Alonso

which is unusual. He's only outqualified Alonso once this year.

Yes, we've seen that. Maybe they're trying to toe each other around.

Mass wra has looked more comfortable than Alonso. Two

different mind sets, of course, one trying to win a championship and

the other trying to do the best he can this weekend. I would except if

they're trying to do the slipstream thing then Alonso would give up in

the early laps. It's interesting that Massa is

quite high on the speed track figures through qualifying at 319

kilometres per hour. Which is higher than it was this morning, so

I wonder if they've backed the down force on Massa's car? Well, the air

temperature is warmer and the engine tends not to breathe so well,

so they've probably decided to drop a little bit of down force. And the

car typically has 10 to 15 kilometres offset, so they don't

have as much power from the engine. They're trying to exploit the

balance they're able to achieve on that car. So down the hill towards

turn 11. Waup for any brake locking here, but that was a neat and tidy

approach from Alonso -- - watch for any brake locking.

Now the long 1km straight. Yes, and the camera shots from the

helicopter this morning are a lot more creative than some of the

other places, whether that is because they have a lot more

freedom over this Texas race track or maybe the pilot has been

involved in some military action, but he definitely brought some

great shots. And look at the grandstands in the closing minutes

of this qualifying, there's a huge fan base here and many millions of

people listening to this broadcast around the world, so Formula One

seems in rude health health. Yes, it's certainly healthy in the

United States. There is Massa. And we know that they are going to

be doing several laps here just to get the best out of these

relatively hard compound tyres. They're on the medium tyres now,

the softer option, but it is definitely a hard tyre.

There was a multiple winner in the indie 500. Yes, that's Dario, one

of the former ratesing boys. It's good to catch up with him.

That was a great opening lap by Grosjean. And what is Vettel going

to do? Grosjean fastest from Maldonado and Alonso, but no real

representative time. Vettel did a 1.35.7. And that's what we're

looking at. He's the only one to have done that so far. Steering

harder. Yes, he threw the car into that apex. That's reminiscent of

how Alonso used to drive when he was winning the championships. He

understood how to get the best out of his tyres. He would be so

aggressive and use the front tyre to generate friction on the corners

and get a big rotation and straiten it up and go. It takes a brave man

to drive with that particular style. And clearly they have tonnes of

bravery. Grosjean going well, but Webber

even quicker. He's running ahead of Grosjean. And looking to beat

Grosjean's time. Grosjean went out of the race with

contact with Webber last time out and had to sit on the sidelines as

the team won. Another mistake. He carried way too much speed on 19.

You could hear he couldn't get the throttle open and he's just looking

ragged right now. Webber goes fastest. But he had to back off as

well to make sure he was in clear traffic. The engine years are --

engineers are on the radio to the drivers all the time and we try to

listen in. Hamilton goes fastest, 1.36.2. But meanwhile, Vettel is

going faster than anyone else through sector one.

He has Raikkonen just ahead in the distance, but far enough away, but

he might give him a gentle slipstream. That's a great feeling

when you have clear air in front of you and you think you're not going

to be distracted at all. Turn 12, a tight hairpin. He's already 0.2 of

a second quicker than his previous best.

Let's watch this. He's on for a 35.5 if he can keep this going.

That would be mighty impressive. looks to me like he's two tenths or

so faster. Across the line fastest, 1.35.877,

not as quick as in qualifying segment two. But he's going on to

another lap. Webber crosses the line third. Hamilton currently is

second. So it's Vettel, Hamilton, Webber, Grosjean Raikkonen.

Schumacher is still up in sixth. Where are the Ferraris? Down in in

seventh and ninth at the moment. Has Schumacher made a mistake on

turn 19, where we saw a lot of errors in yesterday's practice

section. And he messes up the final session as he gets dirt on the

tyres as wellment What can Alonso do? He's got to get

a decent qualifying position. We know they haven't qualified on the

first couple of roads for a lot of events. He had one fourth place

start in Korea. Can he do better this time? He's gone wide. Oh, that

was a mistake. But he just makes sure he cleans up the tyres. That's

what he's doing there. And goes for it again with one minute remaining.

Maldonado now. He's just come through the twisty section here.

He's slow to full power. Trying to steer through the apex.

He's backed out of it. He's not happy with that lap. An update on

Alonso. He was eight tenths slower than the fastest, that would be

enough to put him in the top four if he can replicate this lap. So we

could have a Ferrari on the front couple of rows. Hamilton is going

quickly and just set the fastest middle sector of anybody.

Hamilton here is fast. Is it enough to take the fastest time away from

Vettel? Hamilton crosses the line. He's second by just 51 thousand ths

of a second: But he has one more lap. So it's not overweight. The

team will be on the radio saying," Well done Lewis, you're fantastic,

we love you, but just give us a little bit more!"

Alonso, he's not going to improve and that means he will be eighth

here. OK, Grosjean has a penalty, so that will push him up one, but

it is not good news for Alonso. He is struggling. What is Massa doing

behind him? Well, Alonso moved up to seventh, but Vettel has gone -

well, he's going even quicker. He's just set a new fastest middle

sactor. He has indeed. Hamilton was a full two tenths father than

Vettel's lap he's currently on and Hamilton has just matched him. So

Lewis Hamilton, if he can get the last sector aced he has a shot at

pole position. But Vettel is quicker. Can Hamilton

still try and take it away from Vettel in the closing stages?

Webber is third fastest. Red Bull first and third. Hamilton still on

a God lap. Here is Hamilton. Has he done enough to snatch away pole

position from Sebastian Vettel? No, it's not enough. Hamilton will have

to settle for second place and Sebastian Vettel hats taken his

sixth pole of 2012. It is his 100th Grand Prix this weekend and in the

country where he made his debut in Formula One. And he has taken pole

position once again as he chases down the title and Alonso has been

pushed back to ninth place. Ninth place for Fernando Alonso. It's

gone all wrong for Ferrari. And for the second time this year,

Alonso has been outplayed by his Well, if they finish the way they

have performed today, David, he will be champion tomorrow. Alonso

has to finish in the top four and he will be starting ninth.

Grosjean has a grid penalty to push him down to ninth, bringing Alonso

up to eighth. So let's run through Schumacher, a really surprising

12th is Button, of course, who had But it is Sebastian Vettel who has

taken pole position here at autsen in Texas.

-- Austen. Well, it's not easy to get hold of

a Formula One driver here in the USA. Lewis, what do you make of the

response here? I haven't seen you in ages. What have you made of it

so far this weekend? It's been really school. A great turnout.

Fantastic turnout. So many people out there. I don't know if you can

see and the track is getting better and better. The more you drive on

it, the more you get used to it. I didn't except to get so close to

Red Bull. Today I was just way beyond the limit and hoping that it

would all hook up together and it did. That was an impressive lap.

Can you talk us through this journey? Yes, this is I think on my

second protected lap. Yeah, I got a got exit from turn 1. I was already

down a bit, but up by half a tenth here. As fast as you can you throw

it through those corners. But it's really about being patient through

that whole section. And here being patient to get it back on power to

be flat out on the straight. And I was up I think 0.15 of a tenth here.

Braked a little bit late here but still managed to get the exit. I

had a wheel spin on the exit. I tried to slipstream as much as I

could from the Force India. By here I was 0.1 of a tenth up and I was

thinking, "There will be a good lap." We carried a lot of minimum

speed and used every bit of the road as you can see. This bit is

tricky because there is no grip. And again here I had a bit of a

lock up. Still managed to get a good exit which brought the time

back up. Flat out through here and I had an oversteer moment there.

And this last part. This corner here is the tricky one, but it was

nice and clean. I was quick on the way in and seemed to lose it on the

exit. But came across the line in 0.2, something like that. A great

feeling and great to put it all together. I can't understand. You

said that you would prefer to start third than second, explain that to

you? No, I would have rather have started pole. We get that! But here

it's so slippery out here. It's the slippiest track we've ever driven

on here. The track is getting quicker on the race line, but on

the dirt there's no rubber down. This is a race out there now. We've

got a few people doing burn outs. But I did a launch on P3 and it was

a disaster. So I hope they clean the inside. We'll have our eyes on

you at the start of the race. And now that we're in front of a camera.

And he broke the news about you going to Mercedes, what will you

do? I'll send you an invoice, because I think I got you an extra

�5 million on your contract! I know where you live. We'll wait and see

what happens tomorrow. Thanks very much for joining us. Happy to be

mixing it there with the rebel. Lewis Hamilton starts second in

tomorrow's Grand Prix. Sebastian, you've got the front

seat for the rollercoaster tomorrow. It's your 100 Grand Prix tomorrow.

Yeah, whether it is 100 or 58, it doesn't really matter, but it is

good to be in the front. It is good to start from pole and on the clean

side. I think the first practice session yesterday morning we all

thought you want to be on the clean side, so, yeah, I'm pretty happy

about that. But more so I think it was important to really feel the

car from the first practice onwards. In qualifying it's always good to

get a little bit more out of the car and all in all I think we can

be very happy with the result and we're looking forward to tomorrow.

I think the car feels great therefore let's see what we can do.

Fernando starts on the dirty side in eighth. How much will you be

wanting information about what he is up to in the race, or do you

just concentrate on winning the race? We are fighting for the

championship. We know the situation well. Obviously people like you are

so kind and remine us all the time! But I think, you know, it doesn't

really matter where he is going to be in the race, as in we have to

focus on ourselves. We have to try to get the best possible result and

if you only go around thinking about where the other car is I

don't think you do your optimum and what we want to achieve is our

optimum because that largely enhances our chances of doing well

tomorrow and winning the championship this year. So you

don't have to be a super brain to get that, to know that if you are

ahead it's good and if you're behind it's not so good and

probably that's the same for him. He was barely able to contain his

grin there. That could not have been better for Vettel or Red Bull

that qualifying, could it? It's the perfect scenario frr that team.

This is Sebastian's race.Ess's put his stamp on this brand new circuit

and he's determined to win the race here. And we've seen races where

Vettel has had to work hard to get it on to pole position, but he's

dominated every practice session. He was quickest early on, but the

car seemed so well suited to this circuit, and not only is he driving

well. Yes, the first sector is all about high-speed balance and as the

lap goes on you need a different balance and set up and he's

understood the tyres and how to use them well. But I wouldn't say that

was the perfect qualifying, because his teammate is not alongside him

on the grid and he has a real threat from Hamilton. Qualifying,

the order has been decided but the points and the important side

happens tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if Lewis is a

threat. He's already said he would rather be on pole position, but

perhaps rather third than second. So Webber could be second? Webber

has a history of not making great starts so he could be in fourth or

fifth place coming out of turn one. Grosjean has a penalty but we know

he's been good at making best of other incidents from other drivers,

that's Alonso so he could still come through. Alonso is a long way

back, and we'll hear from him first, but now the third qualifier.

I imagine you're happy to be third? We're all pretty concerned about

the difference of the grip between the left-hand and the right-hand

side. It's pretty frustrating, after P 3, but it's probably to my

detriment because now I'm on the right-side. But in the end I was a

bit surprised how some people are further away. It was not settled

until we got to the guts of P3, and different tyres. People on scrub

and people on new. And JB, we saw him go out with some issues there.

Ultimately I'm happy with third. Not super happy with the gap but we

had to manage a little issue in the car which cost us a bit, but not

How are you feeling after that qualifying, frustrated you could

only manage ninth? Nothing new. I'm not frustrated. We expected to

struggle in this qualifying. Nothing has changed in the car so I

expected it. You are on the difficult side of the grid. Yes,

but we'll see. This is part of the game and we'll try to recover the

places tomorrow. At the end of the day what we need is to score 11

points more than Sebastian Vettel in the race. He is on pole position

and very quick, but he was also quick in Abu Dhabi and on Sunday

afternoon, we were three points closer to him, so we'll see where

we are tomorrow after non-.But not get the best out of the Ferrari

today? Well, his own teammate, who would have thought Massa would be

ahead of him. Two races to go, if ever it was important to get a high

qualifying position it was here and Alonso hasn't done that. You've

been watching Fernando, with a TV camera. This car looks tough to

drive, doesn't it? It does. We've seen him wring the neck of this car.

We've said it's like a bucking horse. He's just saying let's go,

let's see what happens when I commit to the apex, but on this

type of circuit he's not able to deliver the lap time.

And we saw Red Bull sticking parts on their car to make it quicker and

more competitive, whatever Ferrari are doing to improve this car, it's

not enough? Well, if you had to take a gamble you would go with

Adrian, because he has consistently always been able to find that

little extra to make the car go quickly and be able to be a winner

at the important time. And Ferrari are floundering somewhat. They give

nothing to Alonso. I think he has been very quiet in his anticipation

of what the team is able to do. He's managed to drag that car on to

podiums for the last few races, is it in his grasp from where he is

tomorrow? Certainly. This is a track that is green and there are a

lot of corners where drivers could stick their noses in. We're going

to see incidents and accidents because people will get an

opportunity and dive down the inside, only to find there is all

that building dust and everything. He could make his way through, but

the crucial thing is he has to score more points than Vettel.

is how the grid shapes up for form's Grand Prix. And it's a

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 41 seconds

familiar face on the front, Sos headlines from qualifying,

Eddie, if it finishes the way is starts, the title will be won in

Texas and I'm sure the fans would love that to be the case, wouldn't

it? Three times champion for velts Vettel. They'd love that. He has -

Vettel, they'd love that. He has been dominant in the last three

races, I think it can happen. the way the cars have slipped

around on this dusty circuit, is that going to be interesting?

think it will be interesting because the tyres will pick up the

dust and dirt. I think the early laps, especially when they're

running fat with fuel will be very entertaining. A couple of weeks ago

it was all about watching Sebastian Vettel fighting through the field

to keep his championship hopes alive, and now it's Alonso doing

that. It's to do with the difference in the cars no matter

how talented these drivers are. Sadly for Alonso the Ferrari is

just not up to the mark. We have a full two hours of the action from

the circuit. The first ever from Texas. So join us tomorrow evening