Button gutted to miss out on pole position to relentless Vettel

A last-gasp dash by Red Bull deprived Jenson Button of what would have been his first pole position for 45 races by a mere 68 centimetres.

Just nine-thousandths of a second separated Sebastian Vettel from Button in an agonising qualifying session for the Briton ahead of today’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

McLaren’s boffins then worked out what that slender amount of time equated to in terms of distance when travelling across the start-finish line at 175mph.

With Button’s last pole in Monaco during his championship-winning year of 2009, you can appreciate the 31-year-old felt aggrieved.

“You have always got to be a little disappointed when it is that close,” said Button as Vettel made it five poles in a row.

“I got everything out of the car, so to be nine-thousandths off is disappointing, but also a front-row start is not such a bad thing.”

Button was also potentially 20 minutes away from ending his pole drought, as that was how close Vettel came to running with an old-spec front wing in qualifying.

A rare error from the 24-year-old German, who is now in the ideal place to gain the point he requires to become a back-to-back world champion, saw him crash into a barrier yesterday in first practice.

It was significant as it meant Vettel had damaged one of two new special noses for this race, with the other on that of team-mate Mark Webber’s car.

But unlike last year at Silverstone, when Red Bull took a new front wing off Webber and handed it to Vettel ahead of qualifying after a failure on the latter’s car in final practice, this time the team resorted to drastic measures.

Instead, Red Bull flew out a replacement overnight, the package travelling 10,000km and arriving at the circuit in time – by just those precious 20 minutes – for the team to bolt it on to Vettel’s car.

“When I went off in free practice and damaged the wing it wasn’t ideal in the afternoon to prepare the car for today,” said Vettel. “But today we were able to get everything, every single bit out of the car, which was crucial, so special thanks to the team for getting the new front wing out just in time. Many regards also to the factory because without them I would not be sitting on pole position, so I am very happy and very proud.”