Paul Hembery: “Today was probably the tightest battle for pole position that we have seen all year. We saw from free practice yesterday that we were set for a very close fight between Red Bull Racing and McLaren and this turned out to be the case, with both teams making the most of the soft tyres in particular.
“In fact, Lewis Hamilton’s time in qualifying two would have been good enough for pole position had he set it in the final session, which is a good omen for the race tomorrow. From what we have seen so far, tyre degradation is not a big issue here in Abu Dhabi, which should allow the drivers just to go as fast as they can and concentrate on their battles with each other.
“What’s interesting is that our lap times here are 2.2 seconds quicker on average than they were during our first Abu Dhabi test last November, which just underlines the phenomenal pace of development in Formula One.”
