Maiden victory beckons for Toyota

In their eighth season and 127th grand prix, Toyota stand on the brink of their maiden victory after Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock scored an historic one-two in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

For veteran Trulli, it is the fourth time in his 203-race career he starts from top spot.

He posted a lap of one minute, 33.431 seconds at the Sakhir circuit, pipping team-mate Glock by almost three tenths.

Last Sunday’s race winner in China, Sebastian Vettel, is third for Red Bull Racing, with Britons Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton are fourth and fifth for Brawn GP and McLaren respectively.

After grabbing his first pole since the United States Grand Prix in 2005, Trulli said: "This is a great result for the team.

“We have worked very hard for this, and I’m very happy. I feel very comfortable ahead of tomorrow’s race.”

Completing Toyota’s first front row lock-out, Glock remarked: “I was quite happy during qualifying.

“But then I made one mistake, although I don’t think it would have been good enough for pole. Jarno was just too good today.”

Vettel, meanwhile, feels the Toyotas are running light on fuel and so feels he is in a good position to capitalise.

“It was a good session for us,” he said. “We had no problems, and it was a smooth qualifying session, but in Q3 the two Toyotas were just a bit too quick.

“But I think they will be coming in (for their first stop) a bit before me.”

It remains to be seen how strong the Toyota duo are once their fuel load becomes known, but the performance led to understandable celebrations in the garage.

Toyota boss John Howett said: “It’s a combination of aggressive strategy and raw speed.

“I don’t think we’re excessively light on fuel, but we’ll have to see when the loads are published.”

Pre-race favourite Button was not too enamoured with fourth as he said: “We don’t have the pace of the Red Bulls and the Toyotas. It’s good over long runs but not in one lap.”

World champion Hamilton’s season-high fifth place further underlines how quickly he and McLaren are reeling in their rivals.

Rubens Barrichello starts sixth in his Brawn ahead of the Renault of Fernando Alonso, with the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen sandwiching Williams’ Nico Rosberg in eighth, ninth and 10th.

Despite McLaren’s improvements, Heikki Kovalainen again missed out on the top 10, but only just, by 0.076secs, leaving him 11th.

Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima, so far unable to match the pace of team-mate Rosberg, starts 12th, with the BMW Sauber duo behind him in Robert Kubica – who had flames bursting from his car at one stage in Q1 as he sat in his pit box - and Nick Heidfeld.

It is another indicator of how far the team have slumped this season as Kubica was on pole for this race a year ago prior to the two men finishing third and fourth come the chequered flag.

Kubica said: “We are just too slow, but we knew that already.

“We are lucky we have got KERS here in Bahrain or we would be even worse. We just have to stay cool and wait for Barcelona where we will have a new package.”

Renault’s Nelson Piquet is 15th after making it into Q2 for the first time this season, but the young Brazilian has now been out-qualified 22-0 by Alonso since joining the team.

In qualifying for the past two races there has been a surprise name eliminated from the opening 20-minute Q1 – Massa in Malaysia and Kubica in China – and on this occasion it was Mark Webber.

On a high after his runner-up finish in Shanghai behind team-mate Vettel, Webber will start a miserable 19th, although there were extenuating circumstances.

The Australian was blocked on the run down to the final corner of his hot lap by Adrian Sutil in his Force India.

The stewards quickly reviewed Sutil’s actions and imposed a drop of three grid places on the 26-year-old, who will now start one spot behind Webber.

Sutil, who also baulked Alonso in Q1, suggested he “did not know Webber was on a flying lap”.

Sebastien Buemi, who stunned observers by starting 10th in China, was unable to repeat such heroics in Sakhir as he is in 17th.

Sandwiching Webber are Giancarlo Fisichella in his Force India and the Toro Rosso of Sebastien Bourdais, whose days in F1 are surely drawing to a close on the basis of his poor performances this year.