Rosberg gains advantage in the championship with Pole Position at Abu Dhabi

Rosberg gains advantage in the championship with Pole Position at Abu Dhabi

This afternoon we saw championship challenger Nico Rosberg taking the advantage in the championship by securing Pole Position in Abu Dhabi ahead of his team mate and championship leader Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas who was third fastest.

With Caterham returning back to racing at Abu Dhabi this weekend, the qualifying format has now been changed this weekend. We will now see five cars go out in Q1, then another five cars go in Q2 and then the top ten shoot out remains as normal.

In a tense and final qualifying session of the 2014 season, it appeared that Lewis Hamilton during Q1 and Q2 had the advantage over his team mate by topping both sessions. However in Q3, the pendulum swung in Nico Rosberg's favour in the first half and Rosberg extended his advantage and secured his eleventh Pole Position of the season.

Nico Rosberg took Pole Position for tomorrow's race at the Yas Marina circuit with a lap time of 1.40.480 ahead of his team mate and championship leader Lewis Hamilton who was 0.386 seconds behind him. Once again Valtteri Bottas qualified in third place and was 0.545 seconds behind the Mercedes drivers.

Felipe Massa qualified in fourth place and secured a second row lock out for the Williams Martini Racing team ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in fifth place, Sebastian Vettel in sixth place who qualified finished ahead of Toro Rosso rookie Daniil Kvyat in seventh place. Jenson Button qualified in eighth place despite all his problems in the weekend so far (and also won the qualifying battle this year with his team mate 10-9) ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in ninth place who beat his team mate Fernando Alonso to tenth place.

Kevin Magnussen finished the session in eleventh place ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne in twelfth place and ahead of the Force India drivers of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg in thirteenth and fourteenth places. Adrian Sutil qualified in fifteenth place ahead of Lotus driver of Romain Grosjean in sixteenth place and his team mate Esteban Gutierrez in seventeenth place.

As we head into the latter stages of the session, Pastor Maldonado qualified in eighteenth place of the two Caterham drivers of Kamui Kobayashi and Will Stevens who qualified in nineteenth and twentieth places.

The classification of Qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is as follows below:-

Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1.40.480
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 0.386s
Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 0.545s
Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 0.639s
Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 0.787s
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1.413s
Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1.428s
Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1.484s
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1.756s
Fernando Alonso Ferrari 2.386s
Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1.42.195
Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1.42.207
Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1.42.239
Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1.42.239
Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1.43.074
Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1.43.768
Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1.42.860
Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1.42.860
Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 1.44.540
Will Stevens Caterham-Renault 1.45.095

[NB. Romain Grosjean will receive a twenty place grid penalty heading into tomorrow's race. This will see him start from the pit lane and also receive a stop and go penalty during the race]

Report by Sarah Jones

“Abu Dhabi Grand Prix” by GrahamandLeigh.co.uk