Mark Webber secures magnificent seven for Red Bull in Turkey

Mark Webber will start from pole position for tomorrow's Turkish grand prix, the third time in three races for the world championship leader as Red Bull continued their domination of this season's Formula One qualifying. Sebastian Vettel, the pre-season favourite to lead the pairing from the Milton Keynes-based team, once again struggled to match the pace of the Australian and will line up third, with Lewis Hamilton, helped by a modified rear wing, proving fast enough to split the Red Bulls, the first time the McLaren driver has been on the front row of the grid this season. But the talking point in Istanbul tonight was how Ferrari's chances have sailed down the Bosphorus. This may be one of F1's most exotic locations – which is saying something – but the men of the prancing horse are not enjoying the view. The day represented yet another major disappointment for the team, and for Fernando Alonso in particular. Alonso, the favourite for the title before the start of the campaign, did not even make qualifying for the last race in Monaco two weeks ago, when he crashed in practice on Saturday morning and there was not enough time to repair his car. Today the double world champion failed to make it through to the final part of qualifying (Q3). And, as in Monaco, it was driver rather than mechanical error that proved to be the reason. He made a braking miscalculation as he tried to atone for a poor first run in Q2 and will start tomorrow's race in 12th. His team-mate Felipe Massa did not fare much better, finishing in eighth. It was hardly the way F1's most famous brand name wanted to mark their 800th grand prix. "Twelfth place is what we deserve from what we have seen today," Alonso said. "I did not have enough speed and when there are nine drivers within half a second, as happened today in Q2, it takes an instant to be either fourth or 12th, and in my case it was the latter. "I don't know what happened. I didn't think we were so slow. We struggled in Q1, ninth and 10th, and then in Q2 we couldn't improve the time by much and we were out, by a 10th [of a second], but that's the way it is. We have to improve and we know it." With Ferrari and Mercedes once again failing to come anywhere near the Red Bulls it was left to Hamilton and Jenson Button to provide the most coherent challenge to the season's leading team. The encouraging feature for McLaren is that Hamilton finished just over a tenth of a second behind Webber and must feel he has the chance to force his first win of the season tomorrow. But it was Webber, once again, who dominated a Saturday afternoon as he became the first Australian to achieve three pole positions on the spin since Sir Jack Brabham in 1960 – and the first driver in F1 since Massa did so three years ago. "It hasn't been the smoothest of weekends for us in terms of getting the running in," Webber said afterwards. "Getting ready for quali, things started to get a little better. I was a little bit on the back foot going in to be honest but I knew if I dug deep it could be OK. And it worked out for us." Vettel, though, who is becoming used to life looking up Webber's exhaust, appeared disconsolate. "Q1 and Q2 were very smooth but the brakes locked slightly in Q3. It was very weird. All weekend I felt good until today." Despite the series of misfortunes Hamilton remains the most likely challenger to Red Bull's swaggering pre-eminence, despite the fact that he shredded his tyres and skidded off the track at Istanbul Park's notorious turn eight in the morning practice session. "I think on full fuel it will be a little bit closer this time," Hamilton said. "Red Bull has been pretty much untouchable all year in terms of pace, so it's a real boost for my team to know we have a great baseline pace – and our race pace is even better. I'm happy with the balance of the car and we have a good opportunity tomorrow." Button produced another solid performance and will start fourth on the grid. "Fourth is not too bad but the last lap was frustrating," he said. "Being the last car is sometimes a good thing, but there's more chance of someone going off ahead and Michael Schumacher went off in front of me. I saw the yellow flag and decided to come in. We are a lot closer to Red Bull than I expected. My biggest problem is turn eight and I think we've run the car too low. We'll have a lot of fuel on board for tomorrow so it will be tough on turn eight." Red Bull, though, are the team to beat as they have been all season. It will take something special to defeat Webber tomorrow. Perhaps only Hamilton is special enough. How they line up in Istanbul 1) Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1min 26.295sec 2) Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren 1:26.433 3) Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1:26.760 4 ) Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 1:26.781 5) Michael Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:26.857 6) Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:26.952 7) Robert Kubica (Pol) Renault 1:27.039 8) Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:27.082 9) Vitaly Petrov (Rus) Renault 1:27.430 10) Kamui Kobayashi (Jpn) BMW Sauber 1:28.122 11) Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 1:27.525 12) Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:27.612 13) Pedro de la Rosa (Spa) BMW Sauber 1:27.879 14) Sebastien Buemi (Swi) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:28.273 15) Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Williams 1:28.392 16) Jaime Alguersuari (Spa) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:28.540 17) Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Williams 1:28.841 18) Vitantonio Liuzzi (Ita) Force India 1:28.958 19) Jarno Trulli (Ita) Lotus F1 1:30.237 20) Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Lotus F1 1:30.519 21) Timo Glock (Ger) Virgin Racing 1:30.744 22) Bruno Senna (Bra) HRT-F1 1:31.266 23) Lucas di Grassi (Bra) Virgin Racing 1:31.989 24) Karun Chandhok (Ind) HRT-F1 1:32.060