F1: Vettel on Pole in Abu Dhabi twilight zone qualifier

Sebastian Vettel celebrates with second placed Lewis Hamilton (L) and third placed Jenson Button (R) following qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix

Abu Dhabi, November12, 2011 – Another record has fallen to newly-crowned champion Sebastian Vettel. The German driver equalled Nigel Mansell’s record of 14 pole positions in one season (from 1992) by going fastest in qualifying at the Yas Marina circuit, with a time of 1m38.481s. This was comfortably quicker than the time he set to take pole last year – 1m39.394s – before going on to win the championship.

Sebastian Vettel– “I’m pretty pleased. Yesterday I wasn’t very happy with my own performance and with the car and I didn’t feel that comfortable. Today was much better straightaway when we went out this afternoon, but this evening when the sun went down, I had a much better feeling and the car was more together. It came in my direction and helped us. McLaren looked strong throughout the weekend, but I thought if I get everything right then in Q3 then we might have a chance (for the pole) and that’s the way it came for us. I’m very pleased with the pole and it’s a very special one to equal Nigel Mansell as well. It’s a fantastic year and it’s not over yet, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

With the P Zero White medium tyres and P Zero Yellow soft tyres nominated for the race, the top runners used the medium tyre to get through the first qualifying session, in order to take advantage of the extra pace (around 1.2 seconds per lap) of the soft tyre in the remaining sessions.

Before qualifying, McLaren completed their domination of the free practice sessions when Lewis Hamilton went fastest with a time of 1m38.976s on the P Zero Yellow soft in free practice three. This time was set in much warmer conditions than for qualifying and the race, which both have a start time of 17:00 and are characterised by falling temperatures and light levels.

Lewis Hamilton – “It would be nice to have had pole position, but that Red Bull, as always, is very quick in Q3! Still, we’ve got our car to a point where it works particularly well on certain tracks, and we always seem to go well here. To be as competitive as we’ve been this weekend is very encouraging – we’re on the front row so we can have a good race from there. And, for the first time in quite a while, my long-run pace was pretty good too, and I think we had more fuel on board than some of the other teams. I feel really good about tomorrow, in fact. I hope I have a good start – I really want to get into Turn One first. But, if I can’t, I’ll follow Sebastian [Vettel] as closely as I can, I’ll try my hardest not to let him get more than a second ahead, and I’ll try to get ahead through the DRS zones. Last year I started second but braked early into Turn One and let Sebastian have the corner. I’ve just told him that’s not going to happen tomorrow, though…”

Jenson Button – “I haven’t really been able to find a balance that suits me perfectly this weekend. The car changed quite a lot for qualifying. In practice I’d been struggling with the rear end; but, during qualifying, I suddenly had great rear grip and masses of understeer – so the car felt completely different to me. Obviously, there’s only a certain number of things you can do during the qualifying session to counteract that, so we used everything we could to make the car work reasonably well, and I felt much happier as a result. Third isn’t a bad place from which to start – hopefully we’ll get one over on the Red Bulls tomorrow.”

All of the drivers used the P Zero Yellow soft tyres from the second qualifying session onwards, which was briefly interrupted to clear up some debris from a broken bollard.

Mark Webber – “I’m disappointed with my last run, it was a bit scrappy. We had to communicate more than normal during the out lap due to a few things we were managing, so that affected the prep a little. I’m disappointed as there is certainly more there. Sometimes you see Seb’s lap and you go, ‘wow you can’t do that’, he did a good lap for sure today, but I didn’t feel like I got the most out of it when it counted. It will be an interesting first sector, then we’ll get into the race from there. I think this track is traditionally pretty hard to pass on, so it’s likely to be down to the DRS zone and pit stops.”

During the all-important third session, Nico Rosberg was the only driver to go out on the P Zero White medium tyre. He did one out lap with the medium and will start from seventh place tomorrow, having set his fastest lap on the soft tyre. Force India driver Paul Di Resta did not set a time and so will have a free choice of tyres at the start of the race.

Vettel’s final lap on the P Zero Yellow tyre was enough to clinch his 14^th pole of the year and the 29^th of his career, equalling the total number of pole positions set by the great Juan Manuel Fangio. A win tomorrow would keep the German on course to equal Michael Schumacher’s record of the most number of wins in one season as well.

Fernando Alonso: “We are more or less where we expected to be going into the session. It’s not because this is the eighth time out of eighteen qualifying sessions that I have ended up fifth. It’s that, all year long, with a few rare exceptions, McLaren and Red Bull are stronger than us on Saturday, while on Sunday the situation is usually different, with the gaps between us being much closer. We know we can fight for the podium, but to succeed, we will have to do everything perfectly, beginning with the start and our strategy. In Q3, I thought of doing just one run, but then the first one was not perfect and we preferred to try everything right to the end. I don’t think it would have made such a difference having a new set of tyres tomorrow, also because the degradation does not seem that high. Maybe the best time could have come on the second or third flying lap, but going down that route would have compromised our strategy, as we would have to start on tyres that were more worn than those of our rivals. I will start from the clean side of the track and hope to make up some places: the first lap is a good window of opportunity. The front wing? Mine worked well all weekend, but the team decided to move back with Felipe. In one sense it’s positive, because we will have an even greater amount of data to compare in order to get a good understanding of this new component. Tomorrow it will be interesting to see how the tyres will behave from the start to the finish of the race, as the temperature drops.”

The battle for runner-up-spot in the drivers’ championship remains open, as Jenson Button (240 points), Fernando Alonso (227 points), Mark Webber (221 points) and Lewis Hamilton (202 points) are all capable of finishing second, with a maximum of 50 points available to each of them.

CIRCUIT DATA–YAS MARINA CIRCUIT
 Length of lap:5.554km
Total number of race laps:55

Total race distance:305.355km
Pitlane speed limits:60km/h during practice, 100km/h during race