2013 Japanese GP: Mark Webber defeats team-mate Sebastian Vettel to Suzuka pole

Mark Webber took advantage of KERS problems for Sebastian Vettel to finally outqualify his team-mate in 2013 and claim his first pole of his final Formula 1 season at the Japanese GP.

While the qualifying hour didn't see a repeat of the incident-filled practice sessions, when numerous drivers were caught out by Suzuka's unforgiving confines, Q1 had nonetheless been briefly suspended after both rear brakes on Jean-Eric Vergne's Toro Rosso overheated and caught fire, briefly shrouding both the STR8 and the mid-part of the lap in smoke. When the action was restarted the stricken Frenchman was unsurprisingly relegated below the cut line in 18th place, where he was joined by Force India's Adrian Sutil, who experienced a fraught Saturday in the wake of a crash in final practice. To compound the German's frustration, his VJM06's gearbox had already been changed after the previous unit had been damaged in the crash, triggering a five-place grid penalty, and in the first two instances he will drop behind Vergne and Max Chilton, who produced by far the strongest qualifying performance of his rookie season. The Briton, who has steadily closed his single-lap pace deficit to Marussia team-mate Jules Bianchi over recent races, not only outpaced the highly-regarded Frenchman by 0.6s but also both Caterhams - the first time either Marussia driver has achieved the feat since Bahrain in April. In addition to Sutil's five-place penalty, Charles Pic (20th) and Bianchi (22nd) already carried in respective ten-place grid penalties into the session after reaching the three reprimand limit apiece in Korea, meaning the final positions on the grid will be reshaped when the penalties are applied by the FIA on the official grid.