Mark Webber took full advantage of a bizarre set of circumstances to claim his fourth grand prix victory of the season and move to the head of the Formula One world championship standings.

The Australian, starting second on the grid, suffered from the Hungaroring’s infamous ‘dirty side’ and dropped to third on the road behind Red Bull team-mate Sebastian and Fernando Alonso, who made the most of lining up first and third to duel over top spot into the opening turn. However, when the safety car appeared just 15 laps into the race, things turned Webber’s way.

Vettel appeared set for a comfortable afternoon after bolting away in the opening laps, running nearly a second faster than Alonso to build up a sizeable gap over the Spaniard, who had Webber contained in third and attempting to keep his Red Bull cool on another hot Hungaroring afternoon.

Felipe Massa, who had lined up behind the Australian was already being dropped in fourth, while championship leader Lewis Hamilton had to find a way past a fast-starting Vitaly Petrov on lap two to remain in the hunt.

Jenson Button, after his poor qualifying show, saw his race get tougher after dropping to 15th in the first corner melee, with Nico Rosberg, Robert Kubica, Rubens Barrichello, Nico Hulkenberg, Pedro de la Rosa, Adrian Sutil and Michael Schumacher between the Briton and his team-mate in fifth.

The reigning world champion was the first to pit, stopping on lap 14 to switch to the softer Bridgestone tyre option, and was joined in service by Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi who, for the second race in a row, needed a new front wing in the early stages.

The Italian’s problem, however, would have big implications for the outcome of the race, as the stewards decided to deploy the safety car to aid the recovery of debris from the track. That prompted the majority of the field to complete their mandatory change of tyres, with Vettel responding to a late call from the Red Bull pit by bouncing over the kerbs bounding the entry lane.

However, although the German had enough of a lead to ensure that RBR would not have to stack its drivers, Webber remained on track, moving from third to first as Alonso also stopped. Hamilton and Massa joined their fellow frontrunners in pitting, with the Briton appearing to be the big winner by vaulting past his Brazilian rival.

There was drama in pit-lane too, with Nico Rosberg losing his right rear wheel as he pulled back into the ‘fast lane’ and mechanics at Sauber and Williams being forced to scatter as the errant part careered into their garage area.

If anybody thought they could finally bring Red Bull Racing’s peerless pole position run in F1 2010 to an end in Istanbul, man of the moment Mark Webber had other ideas – though McLaren-Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton came close… It was as-you-were in qualifying for this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul, as F1’s man of the moment Mark Webber did it again to see off all his rivals and make it three pole positions in swift succession – and with it maintain Red Bull Racing’s peerless 100 per cent qualifying record in 2010. In the all-important top ten shoot-out, Lewis Hamilton stole some of RBR’s thunder by setting the early pace, but whilst Sebastian Vettel couldn’t dislodge the McLaren-Mercedes star, his team-mate Webber could. All eyes, then, switched to the drivers’ final runs, and it was Webber who headed out first. Lowering his own benchmark time by just over two tenths of a second as he bade to successfully defend both his pole and his pole record, the Aussie was looking good, but Hamilton was also flying – only for an off-colour middle sector to disrupt the Briton’s momentum and leave him short of snatching the advantage. Vettel, too, had no answer to Webber’s searing pace and wound up third – the best part of half a second adrift – with Jenson Button ably backing Hamilton up in P4. Michael Schumacher got the better of young team-mate and compatriot Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes Grand Prix battle as the pair placed respectively fifth and sixth, though the elder German would end his session beached in the gravel trap following a high-speed spin at the end of which the record-breaking seven-time F1 World Champion only narrowly kept his MGP 001 out of the wall. Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov ended up sandwiching Ferrari’s Felipe Massa in seventh, eighth and ninth, with Kamui Kobayashi doing a good job to grab the final spot in tenth for Sauber. Not quite as good a job, however, as the pole-sitter, who has had to contend this weekend with an engine failure, hydraulic issues and handling woes – and yet still fought back to top the timesheets when it really counted. Should the New South Wales native remain trouble-free on Sunday, he could just install himself as new F1 2010 World Championship favourite. Ahead of the top ten showdown, Red Bull and McLaren had turned Q2 into their own private internecine duel, as Messrs. Vettel, Webber, Hamilton and Button went at it hammer-and-tongs for the honour of setting fastest lap, with the German getting the verdict ahead of his team-mate, Hamilton, Mercedes’ Rosberg, Massa and Button. Rosberg, indeed, was outside the top ten with just three minutes to go but hauled himself to safety, but without doubt the greatest shock was the disappearance of double F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso, who got it all wrong on his penultimate effort, leaving himself under pressure on his final flyer – which, ahead of Ferrari’s 800th grand prix, was good enough only for twelfth place. The Spaniard was joined in exiting the fray by Adrian Surtil in eleventh, Pedro de la Rosa in 13th, Sébastien Buemi 14th, Rubens Barrichello Jaime Alguersuari and Nico Hülkenberg, all of whom had similarly flirted with danger in Q1. Completing the top ten were Petrov notably ahead of Renault team-mate Kubica – to secure the young Russian’s first-ever appearance in Q3 – Kobayashi an excellent ninth and Schumacher just saving his skin by narrowly sneaking in to grab P10. Earlier on in Q1, meanwhile, whilst the Red Bulls of a charging Vettel and only slightly slower Webber perhaps unsurprisingly set the pace – after a fashionably late entrance – ahead of Button, the impressive Petrov, Rosberg, Hamilton, Schumacher, Kubica, Alonso and Sutil, there was less good news for the sister Force India of Vitantonio Liuzzi, who endured an ‘off-piste’ moment en route to a lowly 18th spot, missing out on the Q2 cut by some four tenths of a second on his final effort. The Italian was joined in the drop-off zone by the usual suspects of the three new teams Lotus, Virgin and Hispania, with one-lap specialist Jarno Trulli stealing the advantage for the former by just over two tenths of a second, ahead of team-mate Heikki Kovalainen – thereby securing the third Lotus new team ‘front row’ in the last four races – Timo Glock, Bruno Senna impressively getting the better of the second Virgin of Lucas Di Grassi for 22nd and Karun Chandhok bringing up the order after a brief ‘off’ of his own at Turn Ten.

Sebastian Vettel secured a third grand prix victory of 2009 to close out Red Bull Racing’s most successful campaign with a comfortable win in the inaugural race at Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi.

The German was already looking likely to emerge ahead of polesitter Lewis Hamilton at the first round of pit-stops when the 2008 world champion was forced to retire with a rear brake problem and, with the McLaren gone, cruised to a winning margin approaching 20 seconds,

Behind the German, RBR team-mate Mark Webber and new world champion Jenson Button staged a thrilling finale to an otherwise uneventful race by duelling over second place. The Briton, who had started fifth, closed relentlessly on his Australian rival until they were nose to tail for the final few laps, but Webber had just enough in hand to confirm a 1-2 for Red Bull, which completed a hat-trick of victories to end the season.

Rubens Barrichello, after losing parts of his front wing in a first corner clash with Webber, came home a lonely fourth after just beating BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld out of the pits after their respective second stops, while the German’s fifth place was enough to elevate the departing BMW team one place to sixth in the constructors’ table.

Kamui Kobayashi enhanced his chances of clinching a full-time ride with Toyota after finishing sixth on the road in only his second grand prix with the Cologne-based team, coming home ahead of team-mate Jarno Trulli and Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi.

Qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix may have taken nearly three hours to complete, but Rubens Barrichello wasn’t complaining after securing pole position for his home event at Interlagos.

With rain playing havoc with proceedings, the Brawn GP man secured a crucial pole position following a session where both Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel qualified well down the order.

After a number of lengthy delays, Barrichello sent the crowd into raptures by emerging on top of a dramatic Q3 session to secure pole ahead of Red Bull’s Mark Webber, with Adrian Sutil and Jarno Trulli on the second row.

Despite heavy rain, the qualifying session started on time but less than five minutes in, the red flags came out when Giancarlo Fisichella spun exiting the Senna S and lost the engine on his Ferrari, with the restart then being delayed in an effort to allow the conditions to improve.

Although the rain did relent slightly before the session resumed, conditions on track were still far from easy and two of the big names fell at the first hurdle.

Despite being quickest before Fisichella’s spin, Vettel was unable to break into the top 15 as the times came down on the restart and could go no quicker than 16th – a performance that leaves him with plenty to do on race day if the Red Bull man is to keep his title hopes alive.

McLaren pair Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton also fell at the first hurdle as the team went with a dry set-up on its cars, with Kovalainen 17th and Hamilton down in 18th having also gone off track at turn five after aquaplaning on standing water. Nick Heidfeld and Fisichella also failed to make it through to Q2.

The break before Q2 was then extended in the hope of conditions improving but the cars were eventually released onto the circuit only for Tonio Liuzzi to crash heavily at turn one after losing control of his Force India heading into the braking zone. The incident saw the Italian go into the pitwall before sliding off into the barriers although he escaped uninjured from his wrecked car.

The red flags again returned and the session would be halted for well over an hour as rain continued to fall, with a series of inspections taking place before the cars were cleared to return to action nearly 90 minutes later.

Q2 would see Button make a crucial error as he elected to stay out on circuit on wet tyres while others posted banker laps before pitting to try out intermediate rubber on a drying track.

While the cars around him all went quicker and quicker, Button’s gamble failed as he could set only the 14th quickest time; the points leader dropping out at the second stage along with rookie drivers Kamui Kobayashim Jaime Alguersuari and Romain Grosjean.

That set the stage for a dramatic Q3, as continuinely improving conditions saw lap times fall throughout and provisional pole change hands a number of times.

Barrichello held the position twice only to be knocked back to second by Webber – despite the Australian making an error on his fastest lap – but on his final lap of the session, Barrichello posted a time of 1min 19.576secs to secure pole position by a tenth of a second.

Webber had to settle for second place while Sutil took third on his final lap from Trulli – another driver who had twice held provisional pole during the ten-minute – with Kimi Raikkonen fifth and Sebastien Buemi an excellent sixth for Toro Rosso.

Nico Rosberg was seventh, although left to reflect on what might have been after pacing both Q1 and Q2, while Robert Kubica, Kazuki Nakajima and Fernando Alonso completed the top ten.