Sebastian Vettel admitted it had been an “unbelievable” feeling to drive his RB6 around Silverstone’s array of fast sweeps after beating Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber to pole.
With Vettel and Webber having dominated free practice, the three-part qualifying session predictability developed into a private duel between the pair at the top of the times and both topped one of the first two knockout sessions apiece.
Vettel went up another level in Q3 set two times that would have been good enough for pole, with his final 1m29.615s effort 0.143s faster than Webber’s.
It was the German’s second successive British Grand Prix pole and he admits driving the 3.7-mile track is just one big thrill.
“We have a lot of races, then we come here, and Friday morning we do the first couple of laps and it’s unbelievable,” Vettel said.
“The corners combinations… I can only say it again and again – it’s so much fun, especially in quali.
“Our car obviously works very well in those sort of corners and it’s just unbelievable the speed we reach.
“I think we [the drivers] are all a bit crazy, but it’s so much fun. The combination is unbelievable.
“The new section is also great, especially the 11 and 12 [turns] so coming onto the new section with a big bump.
“So I really like this track and fortunately our car works very well here.”
After narrowly topping Q1, Vettel slipped over three tenths of a second adrift of his stable-mate in the second phase before moving back ahead in the pole shootout.
The 23-year-old admits he had probably been pushing over the limit in Q2 so consciously reigned himself back in for his crucial final laps.
“It was a tight session today,” he said. “In Q2 I wasn’t perfectly happy; I think I was pushing a bit too hard and tried a bit too much so for Q3 I went a bit more conservative.
“Of course I had to push, but I had two very, very strong laps and in the end I got the pole which is obviously key for tomorrow.”
Red Bull’s fifth front-row lockout of the season raises the prospect of the Milton Keynes squad’s second runaway Silverstone 1-2 in as many years and Vettel, who won the 2009 event, is naturally hoping history repeats itself.
“I hope we can repeat last year’s story with a very good result here,” he added.
“It’s not my home grand prix obviously but I feel [at] home because the team is home here, they are only 20 minutes away in Milton Keynes so it is great to have their cars again so high up.”
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