Vettel grabs extremely important pole in Abu Dhabi

In the battle for the drivers title Vettel has today clinched a crucial pole position for the season's grand finale in Abu Dhabi. His main contenders to the title, Alonso and Webber, were third and fifth respectively. With low chances of winning the championship but still with a chance, Hamilton will depart alongside Vettel on tomorrow's race.

Opting to make only one run on Q3, the Red Bull drivers had different results. Vettel grabbed imediately provisional pole position and then bettered his time, while Webber wasn't able to have the same performance of his team-mate and failed to get ahead of the McLaren's.

With the Ferrari's and McLaren's returning for another fast lap at the end of the session, Webber dropped to fifth as Lewis Hamilton claimed second place and Alonso got ahead of Jenson Button who will be the fourth car on the starting grid.

Webber will have Ferrari's Felipe Massa making him company on the third line of the grid.

For some time during Q2 Lewis Hamilton had a little scare as he only managed to perform a lap that would give him access to Q3 in the last minutes of the session.

Button complained of a "massive vibration" in his McLaren at the start of Q1, but after going to the garage for treatment to his brakes he found his pace, finishing second only to Vettel in Q2.

The Mercedes' managed to secure eighth and ninth place having opted to use the hard tyres for the majority of their running. In the beginning of qualifying it seemed to be working for them as Rosberg managed to be the second fastest in Q1 and third in Q2.

Completing the top ten were Rubens Barrichello in seventh and Vitaly Petrov, who was tenth, while his team-mate failed to qualify to Q3. This was the only race of the season where Robert Kubica didn't qualify for the last run in qualifying.