Abu Dhabi GP. Qualifying Report. The McLaren team continued their crushing form at the Yas Marina track, with Lewis Hamilton romping to pole position by a huge margin. But it wasn't all good news for the team, with Kovalainen suffering reliability issues.After some searing form in practice, the 2008 champion rarely looked like losing out on the top spot in this session. Despite making a massive cock of his opening run in the top ten shootout, he came back with his final lap to grab pole position by a crushing seven tenths of a second, confirming the probability that he will win he final race of the season by a considerable margin.
Directly behind him were the slightly shocking form of the Red Bulls, who had looked some way off the pace for much of the practice running, but came good right when it mattered to take second with Sebastian Vettel and third with Mark Webber. Whether they were forced to compromise on fuel strategy to achieve that will be known later, but for now, it looks an impressive-enough performance.
Directly behind the RB5 pair will be the Brawn GP duo, with Jenson Button helping to cement his place as world champion by again getting outqualified by his geriatric Brazilian team mate. Barrichello starts two spots behind Vettel in their slightly-interesting battle for second place in the drivers standings, but may also be a bit weak on fuel.
Behind Button came Jarno Trulli, putting his moans about Adrian Sutil to one side to secure a solid-enough starting position for tomorrow's day/night race, one spot ahead of the BMW Sauber pair, who celebrated the German manufacturer's final F1 outing with one of their more solid qualifying efforts of a disappointing year, Robert Kubica finishing 7th and Nick Heidfeld 8th.
The final two runners in Q3 never looked like challenging for much further forwards. Nico Rosberg will start 9th after a lacklustre final qualifying session for Williams, while Sebastien Buemi completed the top ten in his Toro Rosso.
Plenty of big names came a cropper earlier on in the qualifying session. A last-ditch flying lap from Rosberg in Q2 meant that Kimi Raikkonen failed to make the top ten in his last race for Ferrari. The Finn with the big hat will start 11th, alongside Toyota stand-in Kamui Kobayashi, who again performed averagely, but still ok, in qualifying.
Heikki Kovalainen was the other big loser in Q2, his McLaren succumbing to transmission problems leaving him stranded in 13th place on the grid. A shame for the team, who were possibly expecting an all-McLaren front row, and a shame for the Finn, who could do with finishing his season strongly as he looks for a drive in 2010.
Also out in Q2 were Kazuki Nakajima, who made a mistake on his final fast lap, and Jamie Alguersuari, who was quite slow.
But not as slow as Renault, who saw both their cars limp out in the first part of the session. Fernando Alonso will begin his final race for the Renault team in 16th, while Romain Grosjean will start what is likely to also be his last race in a garish Renault in 19th.
The two Force Indias also fell at the first hurdle, which will be frustrating for a team that has ambitions higher than simply avoiding the back row of the grid these days, and Giancarlo Fisichella will begin his final race for Ferrari in last place. Fail.
But it looks like Hamilton has the race itself all wrapped up. Still, if it gets boring, we can all stare at the hotel for a bit.
| Qualifying Times | |||
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time |
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren - Mercedes | 1:40.948 |
| 2 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull - Renault | 1:41.615 |
| 3 | Mark Webber | Red Bull - Renault | 1:41.726 |
| 4 | Rubens Barrichello | Brawn - Mercedes | 1:41.786 |
| 5 | Jenson Button | Brawn - Mercedes | 1:41.892 |
| 6 | Jarno Trulli | Toyota | 1:41.897 |
| 7 | Robert Kubica | BMW Sauber | 1:41.992 |
| 8 | Nick Heidfeld | BMW Sauber | 1:42.343 |
| 9 | Nico Rosberg | Williams - Toyota | 1:42.583 |
| 10 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso - Ferrari | 1:42.716 |
| 11* | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1:40.726 |
| 12* | Kamui Kobayashi | Toyota | 1:40.777 |
| 13* | Heikki Kovalainen | McLaren - Mercedes | 1:40.983 |
| 14* | Kazuki Nakajima | Williams - Toyota | 1:41.148 |
| 15* | Jamie Alguersuari | Toro Rosso - Ferrari | 1:41.689 |
| 16** | Fernando Alonso | Renault | 1:41.667 |
| 17** | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India - Mercedes | 1:41.701 |
| 18** | Adrian Sutil | Force India - Mercedes | 1:41.863 |
| 19** | Romain Grosjean | Renault | 1:41.950 |
| 20** | Giancarlo Fisichella | Ferrari | 1:42.184 |
* - Out in second session
** - Out in first session
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