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Vettel takes crucial Abu Dhabi pole

Sebastian Vettel will start the Abu Dhabi title decider from pole position, with chief rivals Fernando Alonso third and Mark Webber only fifth

The Red Bull drivers elected to do just one run in Q3, with the McLarens having already set times in the mid 1m39s a couple of minutes earlier.

Vettel immediately took provisional pole and then bettered his own time again, while Webber struggled to keep pace with his team-mate and remained behind the times the McLarens set on their first runs.

When the McLarens and Ferraris came back out for one lap at the end, Lewis Hamilton claimed a place on the front row alongside Vettel, seconds before Alonso pipped Jenson Button to the head of the second row.

Webber was left in fifth, and will start alongside Ferrari's Felipe Massa.

Hamilton had survived an earlier scare in Q2 when he was still to post a decent time in the final minutes of the segment. Having already out-braked himself to ruin an earlier lap, he was searching for a gap in the traffic when he appeared to delay Massa on the way into a left hander - though Hamilton did run off the track and collect a bollard in getting out of the way.

Button had complained of a "massive vibration" in his McLaren at the beginning of Q1, but after pitting for treatment to his brakes he found his pace, finishing second only to Vettel in Q2.

Mercedes bucked the trend as Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg did the majority of their running on the harder tyre. It worked for them in the early rounds, particularly Rosberg who was second in Q1 and third in Q2, but come Q3 they did only one run each and ended up with Schumacher eighth and Rosberg ninth.

Rubens Barrichello put Williams into seventh ahead of the two Mercedes, while Renault's Vitaly Petrov completed the top 10.

His team-mate, Robert Kubica ended his run of making it through to Q3 in every race at the final hurdle. Petrov had already made it through, and sat as high as seventh during Q2, but Kubica could not match his time and the Pole's scrappy last-gasp effort fell more than a tenth short.

Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi will start alongside Kubica in 11th, with Adrian Sutil (Force India) and Nick Heidfeld (Sauber) on row seven. Brazil pole-sitter Nico Hulkenberg was just 15th for Williams, with Vitantonio Liuzzi and Jaime Alguersuari concluding the Q2 runners.

The shame of joining the six new team drivers in the elimination zone at the end of Q1 was a battle between Toro Rosso team-mates Sebastien Buemi and Alguersuari.

Buemi held the spot going onto the final laps, but Alguersuari overhauled him by just over a tenth to make it into Q2.

At the back, Jarno Trulli out-qualified Lotus team-mate Heikki Kovalainen, with Timo Glock beating Lucas di Grassi and Bruno Senna ahead of Christian Klien.

Pos  Driver       Car                  Q1         Q2         Q3
 1.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault     1m40.318s  1m39.874s  1m39.394s
 2.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes     1m40.335s  1m40.119s  1m39.425s
 3.  Alonso       Ferrari              1m40.170s  1m40.311s  1m39.792s
 4.  Button       McLaren-Mercedes     1m40.877s  1m40.014s  1m39.823s
 5.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault     1m40.690s  1m40.074s  1m39.925s
 6.  Massa        Ferrari              1m40.942s  1m40.323s  1m40.202s
 7.  Barrichello  Williams-Cosworth    1m40.904s  1m40.476s  1m40.203s
 8.  Schumacher   Mercedes             1m41.222s  1m40.452s  1m40.516s
 9.  Rosberg      Mercedes             1m40.231s  1m40.060s  1m40.589s
10.  Petrov       Renault              1m41.018s  1m40.658s  1m40.901s
11.  Kubica       Renault              1m41.336s  1m40.780s
12.  Kobayashi    Sauber-Ferrari       1m41.045s  1m40.783s
13.  Sutil        Force India-Ferrari  1m41.473s  1m40.914s
14.  Heidfeld     Sauber-Ferrari       1m41.409s  1m41.113s
15.  Hulkenberg   Williams-Cosworth    1m41.015s  1m41.418s
16.  Liuzzi       Force India-Ferrari  1m41.681s  1m41.642s
17.  Alguersuari  Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m41.707s  1m41.738s
18.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m41.824s
19.  Trulli       Lotus-Cosworth       1m43.516s
20.  Kovalainen   Lotus-Cosworth       1m43.712s
21.  Glock        Virgin-Cosworth      1m44.095s
22.  di Grassi    Virgin-Cosworth      1m44.510s
23.  Senna        Hispania-Cosworth    1m45.085s
24.  Klien        Hispania-Cosworth    1m45.296s

All timing unofficial

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