F1 News
Date: 3/November/2012
Lewis Hamilton stormed to pole position during qualifying for the Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix, which saw Fernando Alonso struggle to seventh and then title leader Sebastian Vettel excluded.
Alonso drew praise for racing from fifth to second behind Vettel last Sunday in India, and the Ferrari star faced losing further points after dropping further off the pace - despite updates for this weekend.
“I did almost the same time on three occasions between Q2 and Q3, which means there was nothing more to come,” shrugged Alonso, 13 points behind Vettel with three rounds to go. “We squeezed every last drop of performance out of the car.”
Even Ferrari Team Manager Stefano Domenicali couldn’t sugar-coat the poor performance.
“We are very disappointed,” he said. “We were unable to give our drivers a car with which they could compete for the front rows of the grid. In the race we have almost always seen the gap reduced, but we can’t always hope for exceptional performances like the one Fernando produced last Sunday.”
Alonso had been facing a five-place grid deficit relative to Vettel, who had qualified third on the grid behind Hamilton and his own team-mate Mark Webber.
But Vettel was dramatically excluded from qualifying due to insufficient fuel.
Vettel, who had missed much of final practice due to a brake problem, had been told over the radio to stop his car immediately after Q3 rather than trying to return to the pits.
At least one litre is required for sampling purposes and Hamilton was stripped of pole at the Spanish round when McLaren, realising he might not have enough, instructed Hamilton to switch off his car out on track.
Stewards initially appeared to accept the explanation given by the Red Bull team, presumably that the problem was unrelated to fuel, but then duly found “an insufficient quantity of fuel for sampling purposes”.
Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner explained: “During the slow-down lap following the final run of Q3, Renault instructed to immediately stop Sebastian’s car on the circuit due to an issue with the fuel system.
“After speaking with the stewards, who accepted the situation of ‘force majeure’ for technical reasons for the car to be stopped, unfortunately, for reasons yet to be fully understood, 850ml of the required one litre was pumped out of the car following post-race checks.
“As a result, the FIA has excluded Sebastian from qualifying and we will withdraw the car from Parc Ferme in order to investigate further. Therefore Sebastian will start from the pit lane for tomorrow’s race.
“We will need to make the most of Mark’s strong front-row grid position and Sebastian will have a busy evening ahead of him.”
Vettel, whose best lap time was 0.443s slower than Hamilton but half-a-second ahead of Alonso, brushed off the incident.
“I was just told to switch off the car… One of the best ski jumpers of all times once said ‘Every chance is an opportunity and as far as we are concerned there are still plenty of chances tomorrow’.”
Meanwhile Hamilton, fifth in the standings, will be seeking his first race win since Monza in the Sunday evening race - and on present form it’s hard to see who can stop him.
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