Valencia Victory for Red Bull's Vittel

Another podium for Vittel

Sebastian Vettel's rivals have admitted defeat in the race for this year's title following the Red Bull driver's sixth win of the season in Valencia.

German Vettel extended his championship lead to 77 points after eight rounds with his lights-to-flag victory.

And despite there being 11 races left in the calendar, Lewis Hamilton said: "It's finished really. In the sense of the title it's almost over already."

"The championship is not in our calculations," added Fernando Alonso.

"If anyone thinks we can win the championship being eight-tenths of a second behind [Red Bull] they don't understand Formula 1."

Vettel and Red Bull have been almost completely dominant throughout the season.

The 23-year-old has secured pole position in seven of the eight races so far, going on to win six of them, and is the first man to finish first or second in the first eight races of a Formula 1 season.

If Vettel is going to show a vulnerability, it is when he is under pressure, needs to make up or defend place - as Jenson Button proved in the Canadian Grand Prix 

In total, Vettel has dropped only 14 points all season, and his pace compared to his rivals in the last two races has been even more impressive given that the Canadian and European Grands Prix are not circuits ideally suited to the Red Bull's strengths - in particular on high-speed corners.

But the reigning champion refused to dwell on his championship lead after winning in Valencia.

"If you look at F1 compared to other sports it's a very long season," he said. "You will have some races where it will work and races when you will struggle and it will be difficult.

"I think you need to look at last year as an example. It shows that we [Red Bull] had good races up to a certain point and then things went wrong.

"Of course, our target is to be in the lead and make sure we stay there but the most important race to lead the championship is after the last one."

I think second place is the maximum we can have in these days, so to be here between the Red Bull cars is a great achievementFernando AlonsoFerrari driver

However, with the gap to McLaren driver Jenson Button and Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber now 77 points - McLaren's Hamilton is 89 points adrift and Ferrari's Alonso 99 points off the pace - Vettel's rivals all believe the race is only on for second.

Hamilton and Button are even concerned that the gap between them and Red Bull could be more pronounced in the next race at Silverstone.

"We've taken a step back this weekend - or maybe the others have gone forward," said Hamilton. "I think we're quite a bit down in downforce.

"We haven't made an upgrade on that for several weeks, especially rear downforce, and I think that in the next race we may really struggle again.

"I'm really not looking forward to Silverstone. Ferrari are a lot faster than us and the Red Bulls are on another planet."

Button added: "We need some really good upgrades going forward.

"We need to get our heads down and come up with something - particularly aerodynamically, I think. We need to take some risks.

"There's a big gap behind us to the Mercedes and a big gap in front of us in terms of Ferrari and Red Bull."

Alonso, meanwhile, reiterated his pre-race belief that his focus is solely on beating the chasing pack to second behind Vettel.

"I think second place is the maximum we can have in these days, so to be here between the Red Bull cars is a great achievement [today]," said the Spaniard.

"Our aim is to fight with the McLarens."

Vettel Seizes Seventh Pole in Valencia

Vettel poles in Valencia

Sebastian Vettel needed only one hot lap in the final qualifying to secure his seventh pole position of the season for Red Bull in Valencia. Just after Lewis Hamilton had lapped his McLaren in 1m 37.380s to set the Q3 pace after the first runs, Vettel replied with 1m 36.975s, and that was it. Job done.

When Hamilton failed to improve on his second try, he was pushed off the front row when Mark Webber got things together in his Red Bull, the Australian joining his team mate at the front with 1m 37.163s.

Fernando Alonso, like Hamilton, failed to improve on his first effort, so 1m 37.454s left him fourth as Ferrari team mate Felipe Massa jumped McLaren’s Jenson Button for fifth, improving to 1m 37.535s on his second run. The Englishman also improved, fractionally, to 1m 37.645s, but it was not enough to keep fifth.

Mercedes drivers Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher will start seventh and eighth with 1m 38.231s and 1m 38.240s respectively, while Renault’s Nick Heidfeld and Force India’s Adrian Sutil line up on the fifth row even though they did not record times in the final session.

Q2 was red flagged less than eight minutes in when Pastor Maldonado for some reason stopped his stricken Williams in the middle of the road in Turn 20, soon after setting what was at the time the 13th fastest time of 1m 39.645s. It resumed quickly once the broken FW33 was wheeled away. 

Vettel had already set the pace with 1m 37.305s from Hamilton and Button on 1m 37.727s and 1m 37.749s apiece, but subsequently the dramas surrounded Sutil, whose late 1m 39.034s bumped Vitaly Petrov, who was left 11th on 1m 39.068s. Behind the Russian’s Renault, Paul di Resta was also set for a Q3 run until a slide under braking for Turn 13 on his last run stopped him from improving on the 1m 39.422s that left him a nonetheless strong 12th for Force India. Williams’ Rubens Barrichello was 13th in 1m 39.489s, from Kamui Koyabashi on 1m 39.525s for Sauber, Maldonado, Sergio Perez in the other C30 on 1m 39.657 and Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi on 1m 39.711s.

Q1 was a very odd session, as those who had initially been fastest attempted to conserve rubber and thus some people you would not have expected to finish high up did just that. Massa set the pace with 1m 38.413s, which was no surprise, from Vettel, Schumacher Hamilton and Rosberg, but Sutil sixth ahead of Button? Perez eighth? Barrichello ninth and Buemi 10th? Even Kobayashi had two purple sector times against his name before easing off once 17th place was clearly secure.

Those left in the cold were Jaime Alguersuari on 1m 40.232s for Toro Rosso, then the Lotuses of Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli. The former was at one stage 14th on 1m 41.664s until others improved, which left him 19th, while Trulli spun at the end of a quick lap and had to rely on 1m 42.234s for 20th. Timo Glock kept Virgin comfortably ahead of HRT, with a lap of 1m 42.553s to Tonio Liuzzi’s best of 1m 43.584s, then came Virgin’s Jerome D’Ambrosio on 1m 43.735s and HRT’s Narain Karthikeyan on 1m 44.363s.