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Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber secured Red Bull’s second 1-2 finish of the season at the British Grand Prix on Sunday.

As indicated by Vettel’s incredible pace in qualifying, the young German was in another class for the whole race, crossing the line 15 seconds ahead of team mate Mark Webber, who was followed by Rubens Barrichello.

From the moments the lights went out in front of a capacity crowd at Silverstone, Vettel’s win was never really in doubt.  Rubens Barrichello managed to hold second position off the line but lost out to Mark Webber in the first set of pit stops.

Championship leader Jenson Button got squeezed at the start, dropping back to P9 behind Jarno Trulli and then struggled to keep the heat in his hard tyres, eventually finishing the race in 6th:

On the hard tyres the car just didn’t work and I couldn’t get any tyre temperature. That’s the way our car is in cooler temperatures.

Lewis Hamilton started 18th and  finished a slightly less miserable 16th.

While the local fans may have been hoping for a Brit to win what may be the last F1 race at Silverstone, the Red Bull resurgence has injected a bit more excitement into what was fast becoming a foregone conclusion.  All those extra bits Adrian Newey bolted onto the RB5 allowed Sebastian Vettel to close his gap to Button from 32 points to 25 points and the 1-2 finish sees Red Bull narrow Brawn’s lead in the Constructors’ Championship from 39.5 points to 30.5 points.

The Championship is far from over.

2009 British Grand Prix Race Results

Image: Red Bull / Getty

The FIA now publishes the weights of each car after qualifying on Saturday.  Those cars that make it through to the final qualifying session must use the fuel they qualified with while the rest of the field may refuel before the race.

Below is a graph showing the actual top ten qualifying times as well as those times adjusted for the weight of fuel each car is carrying.  The graph assumes a standard lap time cost of 0.3 seconds per 10kg of fuel.

Nobody looks particularly out of place, although Kazuki Nakajima’s time was only possible because he was fuelled lighter than anyone else on the grid.

What it does show is how fast Sebastian Vettel really was.  His team mate Mark Webber was fuelled lighter than him but could only manage 3rd.  Vettel looks a lot faster than anyone else on the grid.

2009 British Grand Prix car weights

Image: Red Bull / Getty

Sebastian Vettel has claimed his second pole position of the season in qualifying for Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix.

The German’s time of 1:28.316 was enough to take the number one grid slot from Brawn GP’s Jenson Button.

Vettel’s team mate Mark Webber briefly had the fastest time in Q3 but will start behind Vettel tomorow on the second row, alongside Rubens Barrichello.

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton missed out on getting through to the second qualifying session for the second time in a row.  While the team had been cautiously optimistic about their chances in Turkey this weekend, Hamilton seemed to lack confidence and struggled for grip in the twitchy MP4-24.  He will start from 16th on the grid.

Lewis Hamilton said afterwards:

Our car seems to have got slower relative to the others as the grip has gone down on the track.  I pushed as hard as I could today but I just had no grip out there.

Force India’s Adrian Sutil made it to Q2 for the second time in a row and he will start from 15th on the grid tomorrow, between the two McLarens.

Despite a good performance in practice, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa will start from the fourth row of the grid behind team mate Kimi Raikkonen.  He will have a hard time making it four Turkish victories in a row from there.

The new double-decker diffuser fitted to the BMWs of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld seemed to have helped a little, lifting Kubica into Q3, but the team are still firmly in the mid-field.  The Red Bull diffuser on the other hand was finally given a chance to work properly after the slow corners of Monaco and either of the Red Bull drivers could be on the podium on Sunday.

2009 Formula One Turkish Grand Prix Qualifying Results

Image: Red Bull Racing

Sebastian Vettel showed you can still go fast in Formula One without a fancy double-decker diffuser. While car designer Adrian Newey is back at the factory figuring out how to bolt a new back end onto the car, Vettel drove the RB5 to Red Bull’s first pole position in qualifying for Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix.

Team mate Mark Webber also did well and almost looked like he was going to take pole but he will start third behind Fernando Alonso.  The Spaniard’s car was running with an interim diffuser although Renault decided not to use KERS.  In fact out of twenty cars, only three (Heidfeld’s BMW and the two McLarens) will be running a KERS device in the race.

For the first time this season there is no Brawn GP car on the front row with Barrichello starting from fourth and Jenson Button behind him in fifth.

Once Adrian Newey comes up with a new diffuser that fits the RB5 suspension, will Red Bull take over from Brawn GP as the team to beat?

2009 Chinese Grand Prix Qualifying Results

Update: Timo Glock drops five places after a gearbox change.

Image: Getty

The new Red Bull Racing RB5 is set to be launched on Monday but the team have released a preview video showcasing the new Adrian Newey designed car.

In the animated video, narrated by Sebastian Vettel, the 2008 RB4 morphs into the new look RB5 as each of the rule changes are discussed.

The car also explodes to show the battery-based Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS.)

Vettel’s team mate, Mark Webber, thinks the new RB5 will be one of the most beautiful of the 2009 cars, he told the Austrian paper Salzburger Nachrichten:

[The RB5 is] perhaps the most beautiful of the 2009 class, which under the new regulations was pretty difficult.

How similar the car will look in the flesh will be revealed on Monday but it seems like quite a nice looking car; maybe not as pretty as the McLaren or Ferrari but definitely better than Renault and BMW’s efforts.

21-year-old Vettel will be first to drive the new car on Monday at Jerez with Webber taking over later in the week.

Video: Red Bull Racing