McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton crushed all his rivals on Saturday, setting up a Red Bull party-wrecking effort in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix by taking his sixth pole position of the season.
The 27-year-old Briton was simply untouchable as he steered his car to the fastest time in all three parts of the session, finishing with an outstanding best of one minute and 40.630 seconds.
His dazzling display ended Red Bull’s run of three consecutive races in which they dominated qualifying and produced front row lockouts but Mark Webber had the second fastest time.
Defending champion and series leader Sebastian Vettel qualified third to miss out on a front row start in Abu Dhabi for the first time after suffering technical problems for much of the day.
Vettel’s main title rival, Fernando Alonso of Ferrari, struggled to qualify seventh in a frustrating session.
Alonso, who lost the 2010 title to Vettel in what was then the season-ender in Abu Dhabi, flatly admitted that “we were not competitive today,” but will be hoping that, like in previous races, the Ferrari race pace will narrow the gap.
The Spaniard has not won since Germany in July.
Hamilton’s best lap, clocked on his first run in the top ten shootout, was good enough to leave him three-tenths of a second clear of Webber.
Hamilton has a perfect opportunity to end Vettel’s run of four consecutive wins in pursuit of his goal of becoming F1’s youngest triple world champion.
“I’m very excited. It’s the first time for a long time to be ahead of the Red Bulls and starting at the front,” said Hamilton who won the 2011 race over 55-laps of the 5.554km Yas Marina Circuit.
“The car’s felt beautiful all weekend but we’ve not made any improvement since last weekend so I guess it just likes the track and hopefully it will continue to like it tomorrow.”
Webber said: “We did the best we could, it was a pretty smooth qualifying and we’re still a long way up the grid. There’s a little bit of friendly fire going on which we need to tidy up. Seb’s still involved in the drivers’ championship and there’s the constructors’.”
Vettel, who takes part in his 99th Grand Prix on Sunday, said: “This morning wasn’t ideal not being able to run (because of brake trouble).
“I’m not entirely happy with the last part of qualifying. It was quite tricky for me. I should have been a little quicker.”
Vettel stopped his car on the track after qualifying, prompting a stewards inquiry.
Alongside Vettel on the second row is the Williams of Pastor Maldonado who won his maiden F1 race at the Spanish Grand Prix earlier in the season.
Occupying the third row are Kimi Raikkonen and Jenson Button in the second McLaren, with Alonso sharing the fourth row with Nico Rosberg of Mercedes.
