Lewis Hamilton (GBR) Mercedes AMG F1 W06 at Formula One World Championship, Rd19, Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Qualifying, Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi, UAE, Saturday 28 November 2015. © Sutton Motorsport Images
Mercedes
Nico Rosberg, 1m 40.237s, P1
Lewis Hamilton, 1m 40.614s, P2
Hamilton was fastest in both Q1 and Q2, but Rosberg comfortably turned the tables in Q3 to take his sixth successive pole. Hamilton said his team mate was just quicker, and that he’d been struggling all weekend with his car and had possibly disadvantaged himself by taking something off it as he tried to tame it. He did not say what that something was. Overall the Silver Arrows looked as strong as ever, but Rosberg is still concerned about his high mileage engine.
Ferrari
Kimi Raikkonen, 1m 41.051s, P3
Sebastian Vettel, 1m 42.941, P16
Ferrari had a spectacular drop-off in Q1. Vettel ran softs for most of it then missed his chance of a good lap on supersofts when it belatedly became clear his soft-tyre lap wasn’t fast enough. He thus starts 16th. Raikkonen, meanwhile, rose to the occasion on his second run in Q3, to take a decent third behind the Mercedes.
Force India
Sergio Perez, 1m 41.184s, P4
Nico Hulkenberg, 1m 41.686s, P7
Perez did a fabulous job for Force India to take fourth on the grid, and put the VJM08’s performance down to an intensive debrief session after lessons learned in Interlagos. While the Mexican got everything from his car, Hulkenberg was disappointed to qualify only seventh, half a second off his team mate.
Daniil Kvyat (RUS) Red Bull Racing RB11 at Formula One World Championship, Rd19, Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Qualifying, Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi, UAE, Saturday 28 November 2015. © Sutton Motorsport Images
Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo, 1m 41.444s, P5
Daniil Kvyat, 1m 41.933s, P9
Ricciardo said he was really happy with the RB11’s performance, and believes he can find a way round Perez’s Force India tomorrow to fight with Raikkonen. Kvyat was hurt by the electrical gremlin that prevented him from running in FP3, and the lost time proved costly.
Williams
Valtteri Bottas, 1m 41.656s, P6
Felipe Massa, 1m 41.759s, P8
Williams set their cars up for the race and thus knew they would struggle to some extent in qualifying. Both drivers - who were visibly sliding at times - said that their FW37s lacked the grip necessary to get any higher up the starting grid.
Toro Rosso
Carlos Sainz, 1m 42.708s, P10
Max Verstappen, 1m 42.571s, P11
Sainz got a great lap in at the end of Q2, ironically to bump team mate Verstappen. The Spaniard said he was happy with changes he had made to the STR10, and that he got things together well, but the Dutchman admitted that he was unable to prepare his car properly for his final Q2 lap because of traffic, and paid the price by failing to get through to Q3.
Fernando Alonso (ESP) McLaren MP4-30 at Formula One World Championship, Rd19, Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Qualifying, Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi, UAE, Saturday 28 November 2015. © Sutton Motorsport Images
McLaren
Jenson Button, 1m 42.668s, P12
Fernando Alonso, 43.187s, P17
Button was very happy and suggested that his McLaren was the best it had been all year as he qualified 12th. Alonso had looked strong too, but sustained a cut to a tyre on his promising final lap of Q1 and thus missed out on Q2.
Lotus
Pastor Maldonado, 1m 42.807s, P13
Romain Grosjean, No time, P15
Maldonado struggled to 13th place, while Grosjean’s hopes of making Q3 on his last outing for Lotus was stymied by a gearbox problem.
Sauber
Felipe Nasr, 1m 43.614s P14
Marcus Ericsson, 1m 43.838s, P18
Both drivers admitted to making small mistakes, but while Nasr was happy with the changes he had made to his car, Ericsson was frustrated when he had to stop because of an as-yet unidentified technical problem.
Marussia
Will Stevens, 1m 46.297s, P19
Roberto Merhi, 1m 47.434s, P20
While Stevens was very happy with the way his qualifying went, Merhi struggled. The Spaniard has lacked confidence in his car’s brakes all weekend and flat-spotted one set of tyres, then had traffic on his second.
