Italian GP Qualifying review - Seb just scintillating

It is fair to say that in recent seasons, Red Bull do not feature too strongly around the Autodromo Nazionale Monza. A circuit where a low downforce set up is imperative, and high speeds are essential, tends to favour the Ferrari or Mercedes engines in recent years. Their previous best qualifying result in Italy was third back in 2008, where Mark Webber made the most of appalling conditions to take his place on the second row. Thing is, Mark was beaten that day by a driver in the Red Bull B team and in particular Seb Vettel, whose first pole position and subsequent race win for Toro Rosso that weekend has gone down in F1 folklore. A sign of things to come? You don't need me to answer that.

For years, Monza has been their weak point. Yet that all ended Yesterday afternoon where not only was Vettel quickest overall, but showed blistering pace on the long runs hinting that Red Bull may have turned a corner. Seb repeated that result in Fp3 this morning therefore meaning that for the first time since their inception 2005, Red Bull entered qualifying at Monza as favourites.

Just watching Vettel's Q3 performance on television has left me gasping for breath. Fastest on his first run, with a drift or two in the middle of Ascari on his second, Vettel produced an astounding piece of driving on his final run to take pole by half a second. Yes, his nearest challenger Lewis Hamilton's lock up on his last run did cost him a considerable amount of time but would it have been enough to beat Seb?

That will remain unanswered, for we should marvel yet again at Vettel's qualifying exploits which can only be paralleled by a certain Ayrton Senna. His 25th pole position in only his fourth full season has moved him up eighth in the list, while he has become the first man in F1 history to take ten poles in two different seasons. Moreover, given his RB7's pace on Friday it will take something quite heroic for Hamilton and team mate Jenson Button, who qualified third, to match him. Button was a tenth up on his final run but coming out of the Parabolica knew the game was up. Seb was just too quick.

There were to be no miracles at Monza for the Ferrari boys despite their unusual qualifying tactic. For both runs, Fernando Alonso ran in the tow of team mate Felipe Massa for what one can only assume as an attempt to gain extra speed but in front of the adoring Tifosi Alonso could only line up fourth while Massa will start directly behind him in sixth.

Mark Webber, who only managed one run in Q3, will be sandwiched in between the scarlet Ferraris. Vitaly Petrov and Michael Schumacher will line up seventh and eighth while Nico Rosberg, who chose to run the medium compound in Q3, will start ninth. Bruno Senna, who edged out Paul di Resta by 0.006 seconds in Q2, completes the top ten.

The Scot was unfortunate to miss out on Q2 but will be satisfied that once again he is ahead of team mate Adrian Sutil, albeit by just 0.046 seconds. Rubens Barrichello, a two time winner at Monza, will start 13th for Williams just ahead of his team mate Pastor Maldonado, who was fortunate to even make Q2 after losing his front wing after a spin coming out of Parabolica in Q1. They are just ahead of the duelling Saubers of Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez, with Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi sandwiched between them. Jaime Alguersuari was the high profile casualty in Q1, while Jarno Trulli was the quickest of the new teams at his home Grand Prix. Meanwhile Daniel Ricciardo, dogged by technical problems all weekend, managed to out-qualify Tonio Liuzzi for the first time at his more experienced team mate's home race.

Saturday Qualifying Session
POS	DRIVER	NATIONALITY	ENTRANT	TIME
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Germany	Red Bull-Renault	1:22.275
2.	Lewis Hamilton	Britain	McLaren-Mercedes	1:22.725
3.	Jenson Button	Britain	McLaren-Mercedes	1:22.777
4.	Fernando Alonso	Spain	Ferrari	1:22.841
5.	Mark Webber	Australia	Red Bull-Renault	1:22.972
6.	Felipe Massa	Brazil	Ferrari	1:23.188
7.	Vitaly Petrov	Russia	Renault	1:23.530
8.	Michael Schumacher	Germany	Mercedes GP	1:23.777
9.	Nico Rosberg	Germany	Mercedes GP	1:24.477
10.	Bruno Senna	Brazil	Renault	No Time
Q2
11.	Paul di Resta	Britain	Force India-Mercedes	1:24.163
12.	Adrian Sutil	Germany	Force India-Mercedes	1:24.209
13.	Rubens Barrichello	Brazil	Williams-Cosworth	1:24.648
14.	Pastor Maldonado	Venezuela	Williams-Cosworth	1:24.726
15.	Sergio Perez	Mexico	Sauber-Ferrari	1:24.845
16.	Sebastien Buemi	Switzerland	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:24.932
17.	Jaime Alguersuari	Spain	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:25.065
Q1
18.	Jaime Alguersuari	Spain	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:25.334
19.	Jarno Trulli	Italy	Lotus-Renault	1:26.647
20.	Heikki Kovalainen	Finland	Lotus-Renault	1:27.184
21.	Timo Glock	Germany	Virgin-Cosworth	1:27.591
22.	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Belgium	Virgin-Cosworth	1:27.609
23.	Daniel Ricciardo	Australia	HRT-Cosworth	1:28.054
24.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Italy	HRT-Cosworth	1:28.231

Josh.