Webber beats Vettel to Abu Dhabi pole

Mark Webber will start Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from pole position after beating team-mate Sebastian Vettel to the top spot in qualifying.

Almost 0.7s adrift of pace-setter Vettel after the first Q3 runs, Webber produced one of the laps of his life to edge the German by 0.13s.

Even a late improvement from Vettel could not deny Webber his 13th career pole, which equals the tally of Australia’s most prolific Grand Prix pole-sitter, Jack Brabham.

As expected during the twilight hit-out, track evolution proved a key factor, with Webber having to tune his car and himself to the changing conditions.

“We changed the car quite a bit with the front-wing level and things like that as the session went on and I got more and more comfortable,” he said.

“I knew I had to work on certain sections of the track which Sebastian had already been doing a good job already as well as keeping the areas where I was doing a good job.

“Overall I’m happy with the pole. It was a good lap obviously on a track which in the past hasn’t been super invigorating for me in terms of layout.”

Mercedes duo Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton will make up the second row despite the latter’s session ending with a wild spin.

Hamilton, who had topped Q2, later blamed a mechanical problem for the incident which left the Mercedes stranded on the circuit.

Kimi Raikkonen had qualified fifth, but a technical inspection failure  means Nico Hulkenberg and Romain Grosjean moved to fifth and sixth.

he three drivers to only undertake one Q3 run – Felipe Massa, Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo will start seventh, eighth and ninth respectively.

Fernando Alonso will start 10th after narrowly missing Q3; marking the eighth time from 17 events this year that he has been out-qualified by team-mate Massa.

Jenson Button was also out in Q2, while the opening segment’s biggest scalp proved the Force India of Adrian Sutil.

Sunday’s race is the third-last of Webber’s Formula 1 career before he moves to the World Endurance Championship for 2014.

Winless since the British Grand Prix of July, 2012, the veteran is eyeing a 10th career triumph.

“We have a good car for the race I believe,” he said.

“We have shown in the last few events that we’ve been there or thereabouts, leading some races and challenging for some very good results.

“Tomorrow night I’ll keep my head down and look for a very good result, there’s no question about that.”

See below for the full qualifying result