Yeongam, South Korea – Mark Webber topped his Red Bull teammate, Sebastian Vettel, on the final lap in Saturday's qualifying to win the pole for the Korean Grand Prix.
Vettel held the provisional pole in the closing seconds of Q3, but Webber turned a flying lap of 1 minute, 37.242 seconds around the 3.49-mile Korean International Circuit.
Webber earned his second pole of the season and the 10th of his Formula One career. The Australian qualified second for the May 26 Monaco Grand Prix but started on the pole when Michael Schumacher was denied the position due to a five-place grid penalty he received for his contact with Bruno Senna two weeks before in the Spanish Grand Prix.
"It was as reasonable lap, and we did it when it counted," Webber said. "So that's what qualifying is all about. It's been a tricky last few events for me but really happy to start on pole. (Sunday) is the main day, and we're in a good position to get a good result."
Vettel, who has won the last two grand prix, Singapore and Japan, posted the quickest time in all three practice sessions. He finished 0.74 seconds behind Webber in qualifying. Vettel is the defending winner of the Korean GP.
It's the second straight race that Red Bull has secured the front starting row.
"The lap was fine, but I should have been a little bit quicker," Vettel said. "I wasn't able to do the final step in the end, especially in the second sector. I think sector one and sector three were fine but got a little bit mixed-up in the second sector. So I think if you look at the lap times in the end it was fairly close. I think we're happy with second and a front row for Red Bull Racing."
Lewis Hamilton from McLaren finished third after barely advancing into the second qualifying segment.
"It was quite a shocking session for me, didn't get a lap, did quite a poor job," Hamilton said. "Even though the tires weren't so bad temperature-wise, I just had a bit of traffic, locking up. It was very poor, but I'm very lucky that I got through."
Fernando Alonso qualified fourth after finishing 0.65 seconds behind Hamilton. The Ferrari driver enters the Korean GP with just a four-point lead over Vettel in the world championship standings.
Kimi Raikkonen placed his Lotus fifth on the grid, while Alonso's teammate, Felipe Massa, took the sixth spot. Last week in Japan, Massa finished second and made his first podium appearance since Korea two years ago.
Romain Grosjean qualified seventh in his Lotus, followed by Force India's Nico Hulkenberg. Mercedes drivers Nico Rosberg and Schumacher completed the top-10.
McLaren's Jenson Button missed the Q3 cut by 0.005 seconds and therefore will start 11th.
Sunday's 55-lap Korean GP is scheduled to start at 2 a.m. (ET).
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