Istanbul: Germany's Sebastian Vettel put Red Bull on pole position for the Turkish Grand Prix on Saturday after pushing Formula One leader Jenson Button off his pedestal in the final seconds of qualifying.
Button's Brawn GP teammate Rubens Barrichello will start third on Sunday in a race that looks like a duel between the two teams with Red Bull's Australian Mark Webber completing the second row.
The pole was Vettel's career third and established the 21-year-old as favourite at a circuit where the winner has always started from the top slot since the first race in Turkey in 2005.
"Finally we made it; in the last couple of races we tried very hard and now we are ahead of these white cars," said Vettel, whose two previous wins came from pole position.
"We will try our best to keep this statistic alive but it won't be easy. I think we have a very good chance here, a very good car. I expected more difficulties in qualifying, it wasn't easy but we made it," added the German, who suffered an engine failure in Friday practice that cost him track time.
Button, who had been going for his third pole in a row after winning five of the season's six races, acknowledged that history favoured the man on pole position. "We're going to try and change that tomorrow," he added.
Fuel loads
The Briton's team boss Ross Brawn reserved judgement.
"Obviously we would've liked pole position, but it will be interesting to see what the fuel loads are," he told the BBC.
"If early season form is anything to go by, the Red Bulls are lighter than we are but we will have to see," he said.
Only a sprinkling of spectators turned out to enjoy a gloriously sunny afternoon at the Istanbul Park circuit, with rows of empty seats in the grandstands reflecting the credit crunch and an apparent lack of interest among locals.
Italian Jarno Trulli qualified fifth for Toyota, a boost for the Japanese team after a dismal Monaco Grand Prix weekend, with Ferrari's 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen alongside him.
"We have made big improvements and it's nice to be back at the front where we belong," said Trulli, whose team have yet to win a race since their debut in 2002.
Ferrari's Brazilian Felipe Massa, who is chasing his fourth successive Turkish Grand Prix after taking pole position for the past three years, qualified seventh.
McLaren's world champion Lewis Hamilton had another difficult afternoon and will start 16th after failing to make it through the first qualifying session for the second race in succession.
"I pushed as hard as I could today but I just had no grip out there," said Hamilton.
"We now need to make sure we don't rush into making too many changes to the car...we'll take our time, refine things and sort out the problem with our car," added the 24-year-old, who is 42 points adrift of Button.
"This is clearly going to be a challenging year for us, but I have no doubts that we'll bounce back," he said.
Hamilton was beaten by Force India's Adrian Sutil, who starts 15th after reaching the second part of qualifying for the second race in a row.
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