Red Bull’s Mark Webber took a stunning pole for the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday at the Circuit de Catalunya. It is only his third pole of his career and his second pole of the 2010 season. Team mate Sebastien Vettel finished second locking out the front row again for team Red Bull. But it is the manner in which they dominated proceedings which has shocked one and all.

While the two Red Bull drivers were only separated by a tenth of a second, Webber’s gap over third placed Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren is 0.9 seconds (full results). That is a massive advantage in Formula One and even more shocking because all teams have brought aerodynamic updates to the race in order to close down the gap on the run away Red Bulls. Now they have to start work once again to reduce this gap, whatever the result of the race.

In the previous decade, all pole sitters have won the Spanish GP. That Webber won’t win on Sunday is subject to how he handles his team mate Vettel, who made it clear during the post-qualifying press conference (televised) that he will be going for broke. Webber will do well to remember that he was in a similar position in Malaysia where Vettel had a fast start and overtook Webber at the first corner itself, and that was the race done!

The presence of Hamilton at third and Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari at fourth could also complicate matters. Alonso has gone to an extent of conceding defeat ahead of the race, saying that it is near impossible to catch the Red Bulls. But anything is still possible as it is a long race, and there is a championship to fight for as well. Alonso might have given up on winning his home grand prix but will want to salvage as many points as possible, both for the championship and to stay ahead of his team mate Felipe Massa (9th). It was a relative quiet day for Massa and it doesn’t really bode well for the Brazilian going ahead.

Michael Schumacher meanwhile finally trumped his team mate, atleast in qualifying. The seven time champion will start sixth behind Jenson Button’s McLaren while Nico Rosberg will line up eighth behind Robert Kubica’s Renault. The top ten were completed by Kamui Kobayashi who pulled out a stunning last ditch lap in Q2 to edge out Adrian Sutil’s Force India.

In that sense, Force India don’t really seem to be comfortable with the updates they have brought here. On the other hand Sauber look to have made a step forward so possibly the battle to be ‘best of the rest’ will now begin to intensify. Force India will need both their drivers to push for points on Sunday and they might have an advantage having the option to start on hard tyres. Williams meanwhile will drop out of this battle after Rubens Barrichello couldn’t make it out of Q1 despite his car having the aero updates for the race. Nico Hulkenberg out qualified him for the first time this season but that is hardly any consolation for their car doesn’t seem to working.

Karun Chandhok qualified 23rd, just ahead of his team mate Bruno Senna. Their third driver, the more experienced Christian Klien has deemed the HRT car as not upto F1 standards so that is something to ponder over in the next few days. But that will only begin after Sunday’s race which one expects the Red Bulls to dominate. Will this race be where Webber fights back or will Vettel stamp his authority on the 2010 season?