Hamilton beats Red Bulls to Abu Dhabi pole

Lewis Hamilton will start the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from pole position after topping qualifying for the seventh time this season.

The McLaren driver’s first Q3 lap of 1:40.63s proved 0.35s better than that managed by second fastest man Mark Webber.

Webber set his time on his second run, while team-mate Sebastian Vettel’s second effort left the championship leader 0.11s further adrift.

There was post-session drama Vettel, who was asked by his team to shut down his RB8 on his in-lap. He was later disqualified from the session CLICK HERE for report.

The German had earlier completed just one flying lap in Practice 3 due to brake problems.

Pastor Maldonado was the surprise packet of qualifying in fourth ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, Jenson Button and a lacklustre title contender Fernando Alonso. Nico Rosberg, Felipe Massa and Romain Grosjean completed the top 10.

An unsafe pit release involving Alonso and Grosjean was investigated by stewards after the session, with no action taken.

Further down the order, Force India and Sauber both failed to make Q3 with their entries, while Michael Schumacher missed the top 10 cut-off for the second consecutive weekend.

See below for the full qualifying result

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:41.497	1:40.901	1:40.630	15
2	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:41.933	1:41.277	1:40.978	17
3	Sebastian Vettel*	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:42.160	1:41.511	1:41.073	16
4	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1:41.981	1:41.907	1:41.226	22
5	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	1:42.222	1:41.532	1:41.260	20
6	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:42.342	1:41.873	1:41.290	20
7	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:41.939	1:41.514	1:41.582	17
8	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:41.926	1:41.698	1:41.603	17
9	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:41.974	1:41.846	1:41.723	17
10	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:42.046	1:41.620	1:41.778	24
11	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:42.579	1:42.019		16
12	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:42.624	1:42.084		17
13	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:42.572	1:42.218		16
14	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1:42.735	1:42.289		14
15	Bruno Senna	Williams-Renault	1:43.298	1:42.330		18
16	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1:43.582	1:42.606		17
17	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	1:43.280	1:42.765		14
18	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Ferrari	1:44.058			9
19	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham-Renault	1:44.956			11
20	Charles Pic	Marussia-Cosworth	1:45.089			10
21	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham-Renault	1:45.151			11
22	Timo Glock	Marussia-Cosworth	1:45.426			9
23	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT-Cosworth	1:45.766			8
24	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	1:46.382			9

* Vettel will start Rear Of Grid 

See below for Speedcafe.com’s Abu Dhabi Race Guide