Thursday, September 2, 2010

Lewis Hamilton is looking to enjoy himself today as he sets about becoming the first man to win the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The British pace ace is the man to beat as he starts from pole at the Yas Marina Circuit, having dominated qualifying from the start yesterday.

Until Thursday the now-former world champion had never seen the state-of-the-art track.

But the 24-year-old showed he is just as fast a learner as he is a driver. And having bossed his rivals by setting the fastest laps in all three qualifying sessions yesterday he’s out to have a good time today.

“It’s never easy but it was definitely as fun as it looked,” a happy Hamilton said. “The car has been the best it has been all year and it’s a real pleasure to drive here – with this car - it’s a great drive.”

Having been the quickest all weekend it was no shock to see the English speedster end up on pole - but what was surprising was how late he left it to claim the honours.

With the last lap of the day Hamilton sped past his rivals on the timesheet.

It was a breathtaking finish to qualifying as first Aussie ace Mark Webber then his team-mate Sebastian Vettel traded top spot to raise hopes of a one-two for Red Bull. But with his final fling Hamilton flew around the new circuit in 1min, 40.948secs, bettering Vettel by more than half a second.
And not surprisingly he was full of praise for the new track, and he expects fans will be in for a real treat when race action gets under way on Yas Island at 5pm today.

“Before coming here I hadn’t seen any pictures, the place is stunning. They said it would be a great event but it’s mind-blowing. It’s a great race to come to,” Hamilton added. “We’ll put on a great show for everyone.

“They’ve done a great job on the track; there are a few opportunities to overtake so it should be a tight race.”

Even though he has been trailing Hamilton for the past two days Vettel remains confident he can rev up his challenge in F1’s first-ever day/night race.

The rising German star has been dubbed ‘the new Michael Schumacher’ and, while that may faze some, Vettel has looked every inch a world-beater this year. And he’s going to pull out all the stops to end the season on a high.

“Lewis has been strong all year and we saw in Q1 and Q2 it would be tough to match them (McLaren),” Vettel said.

“The car is working well here so we should have a good race. We have a good race pace – I am looking forward to it.”

World champion Jenson Button has also found the circuit to his liking and was pushing Hamilton all the way is Q1 and Q2. But come Q3 he struggled to keep pace with his British rival and eventually had to be content with sixth on the grid. And the new world champion knows he has work to do to if he is to claim his seventh win of a stunning season.

“No of course it’s not [a satisfactory position for a world champion]. Qualifying was really good. The car felt really good,” Button said.

“But in Q3, I had massive vibrations. Every time I hit the brakes the steering wheel was shuddering. It’s a bit weird. Hopefully we can solve it by the race.”

Meanwhile, for Fernando Alonso the move to Ferrari probably cannot come soon enough. The two-time world champion struggled for speed and finished in the last five in Q1.

However, the stroppy speed merchant refused to be downhearted ahead of what will be his last race in a Renault F1 car.

“Hopefully tomorrow we can have a good race with plenty of overtaking manoeuvres the track is quite wide so there should be places to get past people,” Alonso said.