Hamilton storms to Pole in Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2012

Lewis Hamilton who was competitive all weekend in his McLaren, stormed to the pole in F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2012. His time of 1.40.630 was set earlier and others could not better it in their final runs. Mark Webber of Red Bull scored the P2 with a 1:40.978 followed by his teammate and Championship leader Sebastian Vettel at 1:41.073. Sebastian Vettel stopped his car in the track. It is to be seen if he is going to be penalised for that as by rule the cars should have enough fuel to come back for inspection.

Pastor Maldonado who was also competitive in his Williams was P4 with a time of 1:41.226. He was followed by Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus at 1:41.260. Jenson Button of McLaren was P6 with a time of 1:41.290.

Fernando Alonso of Ferrari who is 13 points behind the championship leader Sebastian Vettel, will start at 7th position with a time of 1:41.582. Nico Rosberg of Mercedes complete the 4th row with Alonso.

Felipe Massa of Ferrari will start in the 5th row. He was 9th with a time of 1:41.723. Romain Grosjean of Lotus will give him company in the 5th row as he came 10th with a time of 1:41.778.

Nico Hulkenberg of Force India was 11th, Sergio Perez of Sauber 12th and Paul di Resta of Force India was on 13th.

Michael Schumacher surprisingly failed to qualify for Q2 and came 14th. He admitted that he made an error and wanted to go for another run, but his team engineer told him that the checkered flag has already been waved and he could not go for another round. Michael Schumacher has to now depend on his fast starts during tomorrows race and beat some of the cars in the opening lap to have a good race.

Bruno Senna came in 15th. He was on the verge of being relegated in Q1 as he had Sergio Perez blocking him. This incident will be investigated. However, Bruno Senna simply could not match the pace of his team mate Pastor Maldonado who scored a brilliant P4.

Kobayashi who had scored a brilliant 4th position in the Japanese Grand Prix, is on the verge of losing his drive for next year as his performances are woeful to say the least. Today he qualified at P16. Daniel Ricciardo who hopes to retain his place in Toro Rosso next year scored P17.

The drivers who were knocked out in the Q1 were the usual suspects: Jean Eric Vergne of Toro Rosso, Heikki Kovalainen of Caterham, Charles Pic of Marussia, Vitaly Petrov of Caterham, Timo Glock of Marussia, Pedro de la Rosa of HRT and Narain Karthikeyan of HRT. Narain Karthikeyan of HRT is driving in this circuit for the first time. It didn't help that HRT again made the decision to sit out Narain Karthikeyan in the first practice P1 on friday. Interestingly, HRT being a spanish team has never taken a third driver to drive the P1 in Pedro de la Rosa's place.

More information awaited regarding the Stewards verdict on the pending investigations about Romain Grosjean's unsafe release infront of Fernando Alonso and also Sergio Perez blocking Bruno Senna.