Sebastian Vettel once again got that little bit extra out of the car in the final moments of the final qualifying session of the 2012 Formula 1 European Grand Prix. Vettel did a single run in the final qualifying session, did a perfect lap, and went half a second quicker than the then pole sitter Romain Grosjean. Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Pastor Maldonado were all on the track behind Vettel, but could not beat his time. Lewis occupies the 2nd slot alongside Vettel. Lewis said he was surprised by the result and that he had expected to be further down the grid. Maldanado was 3rd. The lotuses looked very fast throughout the weekend, kept true to their pace with Romain and Kimi in 4th and 5th place respectively. Nico Rosberg who was in the only Mercedes which made into the final qualifying session was in 6th place. He had been complaining that Lewis Hamilton had held him up, but after a stewards inquiry into the incident, it was found that Hamilton had not slowed down deliberately, and he was found to be in no breach of any of the rules. Kamui Kobayaschi was in 7th place, Nico Hulkenberg was in 8th place, and had it not been for a small error in the final corner, he could have been much higher. Jenson Button, who looked good in the final practice session after copying Hamilton’s car setup, could not do anything spectacular, and ended up in 9th place. Paul DiResta in the other Force India completed the top 10.
Home-Hero Fernando Alonso was in 11th place, with the ferrari failing to deliver in the qualifying session, after looking promising in the practice sessions. Michael Schumacher was in 12th place, Felipe Massa in 13th, Bruno Senna, being nowhere close to his team mate, was in 14th, Sergio Perez in 15th place, Heikki Kovalainen in 16th Place and the two Toro Rossos of Daniel Ricciardo and jean-Eric Vergne in 17th and 18th place.
Mark Webber who had to miss most of the Final Practice session due to brake problems and they continued to haunt him in the qualifying session and he could do only one timed run, and after being held up by traffic, found himself in 19th spot. Vitaly Petrov in the other caterham was in 20th place, Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan in the HRTs were in 21st and 22nd spot. Charles Pic in the Marussia was in 23rd spot, and Timo Glock, who was suffering from a stomach bug since thursday could not run in the qualifying session, and did not set a time. He seemed to be doing well on friday, but he got worse on Saturday and the he decided not to run. The team are having him medically examined and it is still not clear as to whether he will take part in the race or not.