The only man that seems capable of denying him such a neat sequence of 44s is his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg, who has won the past two races and taken five successive pole positions.
Advertisement
Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg aims at a sixth pole of the season at Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in Saturday’s qualifying. “I am quicker at the moment and I am pleased about that and happy to be on pole again”.
Rosberg clocked a best lap of 1m 41.983s, ahead of Hamilton (1:42.121), while Mexican Sergio Perez was third for Force India, four-tenths adrift of Hamilton, in hot conditions at the Yas Marina circuit.
While opening practice took place in the intense Abu Dhabi heat, the day’s second session, which started at dusk, will be representative of qualifying and race conditions.
Hamilton agreed that his Friday time was not representative, saying he “didn’t really get the best out of the tires” after lapping two tenths of a second slower than Rosberg in the evening session.
British reserve driver Jolyon Palmer, who is due to replace departing Frenchman Romain Grosjean next season, had to sit out all but the final 12 minutes as the team worked to fix a water leak on his vehicle.
“The long-run pace doesn’t feel so good”, said the three-time world champion.
Rosberg might be on a roll going into this final race of the season, but already the German, who lives in Monaco, is looking for more challenges next season and for Sunday.
Amid conjecture about the impact of changes to tyre pressure regulations, the Singapore GP weekend marked the start of a new development path for the team, which Hamilton says has changed the set-up “drastically”. Russian Daniil Kvyat finished ahead of Red Bull and Spaniard Carlos Sainz 10th for Toro Rosso.
“We have been working hard to make some changes”.
Alonso said his prominent showing owed more to the fact that McLaren did its running on super-soft tires later in the session than other teams and said “unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be ninth-fastest tomorrow”. “The races generally have been quite good so I am just trying to figure out why this is the case in qualifying”.
Advertisement
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was third fastest, 0.281secs behind Rosberg but only 0.048secs off Hamilton’s time.
