Formula One news

"KERS button not working!" - Vettel

Sebasian Vettel has admitted that both he and Red Bull Racing team-mate Mark Webber were surprised at the qualifying pace of McLaren and Lewis Hamilton in Abu Dhabi on Saturday evening. As the Milton Keynes cars briefly locked out the front row of the grid, Woking's McLaren came through to steal the top spot.

Although Hamilton may be on pole, Vettel is well-placed as he is two positions ahead of Rubens Barrichello, with whom he is battling for this year's runner-up spot behind Jenson Button. "Both of us were surprised by the gap," Vettel said of his and Webber's feelings towards McLaren. "Lewis has been strong all weekend and McLaren are strong here, as we saw in Q1 and Q2, so let's see the strategies."

With the fuel loads set to be revealed by the FIA later this evening, Sebastien stressed that no more performance could have been extracted from the Red Bull-Renault RB5. "It was maximum we could do," he continued. "The car is working well here but KERS button which we have on our steering wheel isn't working(!)...the car has good race pace so I'm looking forward to tomorrow."

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