Formula 1: Red Bull fast in all conditions

R ed Bull pilot Sebastian Vettel has the The best conditions for winning the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday: The 22-year-old from Heppenheim will start from pole position and from the clean side of the grid.

In Melbourne, however, there is usually a bigger Kuddellmudell when the entire GP field turns into the first corner. If Vettel gets off to a clean start and can defend his position in the first corner, then he has the best chance of crossing the finish line as the winner.

Red Bull: A lot of downforce - little top speed

The racing performance of the Red Bull -Wagen should be in no way inferior to the quality performance: The Red Bull is Fast with both hard tires and soft tires. Mark Webber drove ultra-fast lap times with the hard tires in the second qualifying segment. The long runs from the free practice sessions also left little to be desired in terms of tire wear.

Vettel steps on the euphoria brakes: 'The street circuit in Melbourne has a certain tradition when it comes to racing incidents and safety car phases. Nevertheless, after the pole position, victory is of course the goal.' What was noticeable in qualifying: Red Bull had by far the worst top speed values, which indicates that the Red Bulls drive with an extremely high level of downforce. In the top speed classification, they were 23 and 24 - a good 15 kilometers per hour behind the McLaren Mercedes drivers!

Downforce helps even in the rain

Force India driver Adrian Sutil noticed: 'When it comes to downforce, Red Bull is in a league of its own.' The enormous level of downforce would play into Red Bull's hands on Sunday even in the worst possible case: The meteorologists do not want to rule out a rain race. Even under these conditions, downforce would be the key to success.

The only real danger for Vettel and Webber lurks after the qualifying result in the person of Ferrari star Fernando Alonso. Ferrari is running an aggressive program to compensate for the speed disadvantage compared to Red Bull. In Melbourne, the Italians even screwed a modified front wing onto the car during qualifying. 'That only takes a few hundredths of a second,' said Alonso.

Alonso wants Red Bullattack

But Ferrari is clear: the starting line-up in Formula 1 often decides on victory or defeat. 'I'm very satisfied with the result in qualifying,' said Alonso. The goal in the race is to keep improving. '

Behind Ferrari driver Alonso, there was a clear break in lap times in qualifying: While the first three drivers were separated by just under two tenths of a second, pointed McLaren-Mercedes driver Jenson Button in fourth place is already almost eight tenths of a second behind pole setter Vettel. It is clear that victory only leads to Red Bull.

Silver Arrows in the middle of the start fray

The situation for the German Mercedes GP team is also difficult: Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher will start from positions 6 and 7 on Sunday - in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the start the German works team is closer to the top than in Bahrain, and for two reasons: firstly, the outside temperatures are lower than at the start of the season, which means that the problems with the tire temperature take a back seat. And secondly, the Mercedes GP racers like the liquid Sta German course much better than the slope in Bahrain.

Points are for the Mercedes GP drivers Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher definitely within reach - but the podium is at best a long-term goal if the race is normal. 'I believe that the qualifying result from Melbourne reflects the balance of power to some extent correctly,' said Michael Schumacher. 'We probably got the maximum out of today. After all, I'll be on the clean side of the grid tomorrow.'

Sutil on the Mercedes hunt

Points are also the obvious goal of Force India driver Adrian Sutil: 'Unfortunately, I couldn't repeat the time from the second segment in the third qualifying segment because the rear tire didn't get up to temperature. But we as a team confirmed again, that we can regularly fight for points. Maybe we are even able to put the Mercedes drivers in front of us under pressure. '

Williams driver Nico Hülkenberg and Virgin driver Timo Glock will be in the race Having to tackle significantly more modest goals: For Glock it would be a success to even reach the goal after the problems in the training sessions. For the race, his Virgin team will start without the transmission oil filter, which has caused most of the problems in practice so far.

Hulkenberg disappointed with qualifying performance

Nico Hulkenberg said: 'The goal in qualifying was to finish in the top ten. Of course I am Idisappointed that we didn't make it. On the other hand, it's my first time in Melbourne, so it wasn't easy to find a good rhythm. Because of the qualifying result it will of course be very difficult to finish in the points tomorrow. '