F1: Sebastian Vettel on the verge of fourth title as he sees off Mercedes challenge to take his 43rd pole in India Sebastian Vettel wouldn't reveal what rev-up music he listens to before a grand prix, but Status Quo would be suitable a nomination. He's the only man ever to lead a lap at India's Buddh International Circuit, where he dominated the last two events, and he's won the last five races of 2013. For a man who just needs to win here to cement a fourth consecutive world championship, he's sitting in the pounds seats after dominating practice and taking his 43rd pole position. Yes, the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton ganged up on his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber, but Vettel's margin of seven-tenths of a second over the silver arrows was all the proof you needed of the superiority of his Adrian Newey-designed machine. He lost no time in redefining the ante yet again in the final qualifying session and his lap of 1m 24.119s was so far ahead of everyone else it wasn't funny. But Webber, like Fernando Alonso and the McLaren drivers, opted to run Pirelli's medium-compound tyre rather than the soft that his main rivals favoured, and that left him prey to the Mercedes. First Rosberg beat him with 1m 24.871s, then Hamilton with 1m 24.941s. But Webber improved to 1m 25.047s to take fourth, and could reap the benefits of that in a race which will be decided on strategy. The soft tyres are faster but the mediums are much longer lasting. "It's been a brilliant weekend, and the car basically has been fantastic since yesterday morning and has stayed that way as the track conditions ramped up," Vettel said. This is a great circuit and I really like its flow with all the high-speed corners in the middle sector. Of course, if your car works well there, you really enjoy that. Hamilton, listening in during the post-race press conference, smiled ruefully and said admiringly, "Incredible congratulations to Seb. That's some serious pace that they have. Despite this, Vettel refuses to consider his chances of wrapping up his title with three races to run. "I'm trying not to think about it," he said, before adding with a chuckle, "but it's difficult when every second person in the paddock asks you the same question. But we will just focus on every single step. I don't know which strategy will prove to be the right one; but it's a long race and it's always tricky to do the right thing. But there are a lot of laps and we have a quick package so we should be in good shape. The strategy surely is not easy to decide but if everybody does his bit it shouldn't matter too much. We'll see how well each one works out tomorrow! Both Mercedes drivers agreed that they had driven the wheels off their cars. "To be honest, I was completely on a knife edge and really pushed the limits to try and find that extra tenth of a second, trying new things," Rosberg said. I'm very pleased with second because it's better than I hoped for with Mark being on another strategy. We've taken a step forward from recent races. "It's been a tough weekend for us, and we have been pushing as hard as we can," Hamilton said. I've struggled a little bit with something different on the car which Nico has had experience of in the past, and I have to say I was a little bit surprised to be where we are. But we just kept adjusting the set-up bit by bit and the car was reasonable. In Turns 8 and 9 I had somebody ahead of me" - he turned to Vettel with a smile as he added: - "It may have been you! But it didn't lose me too much time. Strategy will play a huge part tomorrow and we'll try and push Red Bull as hard as we can even if they are in a different world, and try to stay ahead of the guys behind us. Off the track, news filtered through in Uttar Pradesh that the Germans" legal case against Bernie Ecclestone, once delayed until 2014, is now due to be heard in Munich on November 6, after next week's Abu Dhabi GP.