The setting for the Abu Dhabi GP weekend couldn´t be any more perfect! The atmosphere at the qualifying was absolutely outstanding: the qualifying started in the daylight but the sun set very quickly and the final session was driven under the artificial lights. Those made the cars look so glamorous! The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix definitely compares to grands prix like Monaco and Singapore. In the heat of about 30 degrees Celsius the huge orange sun looked utterly amazing. The scenery made the setting look almost romantic!
Romantic point of view aside, let´s talk about today´s qualifying. Q1 was pretty much business as usual except one dramatic moment. On his first flying lap Vettel went wide and the rear-right tyre slightly hit the wall! It was a scary moment but luckily the car wasn´t damaged due to the incident and Vettel was back in action and full speed in his following attempts.
Dusk started to fall when Q2 got underway. Hamilton in his McLaren showed all his rivals that there was no doubt of the quickest man on the track today. He set a staggering lap time which was out of reach for the others. The four top teams made it easily in to the final session: McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari and Lotus. Rosberg in his Mercedes also made his way through to Q3 as well as Maldonado in his Williams. It looked to me that not even Sebastian could challenge Hamilton for pole today...
And he couldn´t. Hamilton was unstoppable in Q3, too. Sebastian seemed to be struggling with his performance and his team-mate Webber managed to qualify 2nd right ahead of him. A surprise fast man in Q3 was Maldonado in his Williams who made it up to 4th! Kimi got the maximum out of his E20 and he claimed P5 right ahead of Button (6th) and Alonso (7th). Those three had it very tight: the trio was separated by hundredths of a second only! I have to admit I was absolutely delighted to see Alonso beaten by Button and especially Kimi. Kimi was doing an incredible job with his car which wasn´t in a perfect form. The Iceman´s team-mate Grosjean instead was left in P10.
There was another dramatic moment in the dark night of Abu Dhabi. Vettel stopped his RB8 on the track right after the Q3. In the post qualifying press conference the German said he didn´t know the reason why he had been told to stop the car but the order had come from the engine department. So it sounds like an engine related issue... Which sounds extremely worrying in terms of tomorrow´s race! Writing this I still don´t know what the issue is all about. I just keep my fingers crossed down to my elbows that the issue is fixable! A grid penalty of any kind would be absolutely devastating! I´ve read that it´s possible to change some parts to the engine without getting a penalty but an engine related problem sounds scary anyway! Will the engine last throughout the entire race in the burning heat of Abu Dhabi...? I really don´t want to see a DNF for Vettel tomorrow! This is now one of the crucial moments of the season. Sebastian can´t afford giving away possibly 25 points when there´re only two more rounds to go after this one!
Tomorrow´s race will be extremely interesting. Will Webber fight firmly against his team-mate at the start... I don´t quite know what to expect from the Australian. I hope Kimi manages to overtake Maldonado on the opening lap without Maldonado crashing to him and I´m sure I´m going to enjoy every moment if Button and Kimi manage to keep Alonso behind them ;) But the first thought in my mind at the moment is: will Sebastian´s RB8 prove reliable? I really really hope so because Sebastian needs his Abbey now more than ever!
P.S. A few hours after finishing my blog post my world literally turned upside down! The FIA decision took four hours to come and it was devastating: there simply wasn´t enough fuel left in Vettel´s car (there was only 850 ml though one litre was required) and due to this Vettel has been excluded from the qualifying and will start to the race from pit lane! I´m shocked! This could have a massive influence on the title fight! How can this happen? I have to pinch myself and read the news again so that I know I´m not having a terrible nightmare at the moment. How can Red Bull screw up with the fuel like this? If Sebastian loses the title fight at the end of the season I assure you that this is the first and the only incident that I´m going to think about! Mistakes like this shouldn´t happen at this stage of the season! Making mistakes is what makes us human but I feel no sympathy whatsoever at the moment! Starting from the pit lane is a complete catastrophe for Sebastian! Having the second slowest straight line speed, what can the German do? On the official F1 website Sebastian told in the interview that it wasn´t a low fuel issue... Why lie about the issue when FIA was going to find about it anyway? I´m so furious when writing this that I don´t actually even know what to write! The world can really turn upside down in a heart beat! But no matter what, I trust in you Sebastian and know that you´re capable of making miracles so all the best for tomorrow´s race!
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