Vettel wins in Japan in front of Truli and Hamilton

Only team-mate Mark Webber could stop Sebastian Vettel from recording a perfect weekend this afternoon in Japan, as the young German romped clear from pole position to win his third race of the season, leading every lap of the race in the process. Had it not been for Webber’s late pitstop for new tyres on low fuel, Vettel would also have recorded fastest lap, but more significantly his 10 points and Brawn’s struggle to 7th and 8th means he remains in title contention with just two races remaining.

From the start, Vettel was challenged strongly by the KERS-boosted Lewis Hamilton, and after successfully fending him off, was never again under pressure for the lead. With more fuel on-board than his nearest rivals, he kept the lead even during the pitstops, and shrugged off a late-race safety car period to record a comfortable five-second victory.

Vettel takes pole in Suzuka qualifying

Sebastian Vettel will start from pole position in tomorrow’s Japanese Grand Prix after an action-packed qualifying session at Suzuka this afternoon. The scheduled qualifying hour was delayed by three red flag periods courtesy of three separate crashes in Q2 and Q3, eventually ending half an hour late.

With Red Bull’s Mark Webber having been ruled out of qualifying after damaging his chassis in final practice, just four drivers would be eliminated in Q1. After a largely trouble-free session for most drivers, Giancarlo Fisichella (1m31.704s) dropped out at the first hurdle for the second successive time, followed closely by home hero Kazuki Nakajima (1m31.718s) who was unable to turn local knowledge into a Q2-worthy laptime.

Kovalainen tops Friday Practice

Mc LAren driver Heiki Kobalainen surprisingly tops today’s Free Practice session today while it’s Rosberg who was fastest in first session as usual.

Here are driver comments after Friday practice sessions,

1 . H. Kovalainen – McLaren Mercedes MP4-24
“At the start of the session, the track was very green and it was quite hard to stay on the road – particularly in the opening corners. At first, the car was quite difficult to drive but we worked hard during the session and I think we found a very good balance. The most important thing is that the car is working fine – and the balance is surprisingly good. I think we’ve made another step forward so everybody in the team can be pleased about today. I still think it will be a tough fight to get into the top 10 tomorrow, but we’ll be trying the maximum to improve overnight so that we can join the fight. Overall, it’s very encouraging that we have made another step forward.”

Spanish Grand Prix, Team and Driver official previews

After four back to back fly-away races of 2009 season, Formula 1 is finally back to Europe starting with Spanish Grand Prix this week. Most of the teams are planning to bring major updates to this track and it will be interesting to see who did the best job. All ten teams have done testing here in March, but the pecking order may change as all the teams brought updates to their cars during past four races.

Ferrari, Brawn, BMW and Torro Rosso teams are excpected to bring major updates to this event. Ferrari will have it’s first double decker diffuser solution and a lighter chasis for Raikkonen while BMW will have a lighter chasis and a lot of aerodynamic updates. They also ruled out running KERS at Spanish and Monaco grand prix’s to be able to focus on evaluating updates. On the other hand, Brawn Gp will introduce their first update to the car this season.

Driver Quotes after Chinese Grand Prix

BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli on their dramatic collision; Force India’s Adrian Sutil on being less than six laps from scoring his team’s first points; and Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber on their spectacular one-two victory. All 20 drivers and senior team personnel report back on Sunday’s race…