Qualifying Bahrain: Vettel takes first pole of 2012

After three races off the boil, Sebastian Vettel came good in Bahrain on Saturday as he claimed pole position ahead of Lewis Hamilton

Although Mercedes were the favourite going into the Saturday afternoon session they were not able to make a mark with Nico Rosberg losing time in the final sector.

That left Vettel, Mark Webber, Hamilton and Jenson Button fighting for pole position.

Vettel took it with a 1:32.422, which put him 0.098s ahead of Hamilton with Webber third, 0.215s off the pace.

Button settled for fourth, aborting his final run with Rosberg fifth ahead of a very impressive Daniel Ricciardo.

The biggest casualty in qualifying was Michael Schumacher who was sitting in the pits for the final few minutes of Q1 and could only watch as his time came under pressure.

And as Heikki Kovalainen crossed the line, Schumacher could do nothing but climb out of his car down in 18th place.

Times
01 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1:32.422
02 Lewis Hamilton McLaren 1:32.520
03 Mark Webber Red Bull 1:32.637
04 Jenson Button McLaren 1:32.711
05 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:32.821
06 Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:32.912
07 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:33.008
08 Sergio Perez Sauber 1:33.394
09 Fernando Alonso Ferrari
10 Paul di Resta Force India

11 Kimi Räikkönen Lotus 1:33.789
12 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber 1:33.806
13 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:33.807
14 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:33.912
15 Bruno Senna Williams 1:34.017
16 Heikki Kovalainen Caterham 1:36.132
17 Pastor Maldonado Williams

18 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1:34.865
19 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:35.014
20 Vitaly Petrov Caterham 1:35.823
21 Charles Pic Marussia 1:37.683
22 Pedro de la Rosa HRT 1:37.883
23 Timo Glock Marussia 1:37.905
24 Narain Karthikeyan HRT 1:38.314

Source: Planet-F1