For the first time this season we don’t have a Red Bull Racing driver on pole position with Sebastian Vettel 2nd Mark Webber down in 4th. Lewis Hamilton pulled out a fantastic final lap late in the session, just 0.2s quicker than the newly-crowned champion.
He may have grabbed pole position, but when getting out of his car and heading through parc ferme, he seemed to be hiding his true emotion, with no cheers or celebration and a massively subdued press conference – for more on that see here. Maybe it was just to wind up the journalists who will suddenly say he’s great again after suggesting he’d lost lost it just last week – who knows. We’re sure we’ll see him celebrating if he can turn the pole into a victory though.
Other than the non-Red Bull pole, Michael Schumacher was knocked out in the second round of qualifying, Rubens Barrrichello was knocked out in the first round and Daniel Ricciardo didn’t set a time due to issues with his Hispania Racing car.
Here’s the grid for Sunday:
