Pirelli, Hembery: “Today was probably the closest battle for pole we have seen this year”

Another record for the new World Champion Sebastian Vettel. The German driver in fact equaled Nigel Mansell's record of 14 seasonal pole positions (set in 1992) by beating all his rivals in qualifying on the Yas Marina circuit, with a time of 1m38.481s. Definitely lower than the one that earned him pole last year – 1m39.394s – before winning the Title.

With the P Zero White medium and P Zero Yellow soft tires nominated for the race, the championship leaders used the medium compound to get through the first qualifying round and take advantage of the extra pace – around 1,2 seconds per lap – offered by the soft compound in the remaining sessions. All the drivers used the P Zero Yellow soft tires from the second qualifying session onwards, which was briefly interrupted to remove debris from a broken pylon from the track.

Before qualifying, McLaren had completed its dominance in free practice with Lewis Hamilton setting the best lap, with a time of 1m38.976s achieved in the third session on the P Zero Yellow softs. This time was obtained with decidedly higher temperatures than those recorded in qualifying and which will also be seen in tomorrow's race, both at 17pm local time and therefore characterized by a decrease in temperature and light.

During the crucial third session, Nico Rosberg was the only rider to go out on the medium P Zero Whites. The German completed just one timed lap on the medium compound and tomorrow he will start from seventh position, after having completed his best lap on the soft tyres. Force India driver Paul Di Resta did not record any times, so he will be able to choose which tires to start the race with. Vettel's final lap on the P Zero Yellow softs allowed him to take his 14th pole position of the year and the 29th of his career, thus equaling the total number of poles of the great Juan Manuel Fangio. And a victory tomorrow would allow the German to remain in the running to equal Michael Schumacher's record of 13 seasonal victories achieved in 2004.

The comment of Pirelli Motorsport Director, Paul Hembery: “Today was probably the closest battle for pole we have witnessed this year. Since yesterday's free practice we saw that a very close fight was preparing between Red Bull Racing and McLaren, as in fact happened, with both teams making the most of the soft compounds in particular. Indeed, Lewis Hamilton's time in Q2 would have been more than enough for pole position had he set it in the final session, a good omen for tomorrow's race. From what we have seen so far, tire degradation is not an issue here in Abu Dhabi, which should allow the drivers to focus solely on speed and comparisons with rivals. What is interesting is that our lap times here are 2,2 seconds slower on average than in our first test in Abu Dhabi last November, reflecting the truly phenomenal pace of development in Formula One.”