Sebastian Vettel admitted Red Bull was surprised by the large margin with which Lewis Hamilton took pole position in Abu Dhabi, but nevertheless remains optimistic for a strong race from his place alongside the McLaren on the front row.
Although its championship chances ended at the previous round in Brazil, RBR is still aiming to round off the best season in its history with a third successive victory in this weekend’s inaugural event at the Yas Marina circuit.
In the dying seconds of Q3 Vettel and team-mate Mark Webber vaulted up from the lower reaches of the top 10 to provisional pole and second respectively, before Hamilton – who had dominated the previous two stages – blew their times away with a stunning effort some 0.7s faster.
Vettel confessed he hadn’t expected to be that far away from pole, but said that given McLaren had dominated practice Red Bull had to be satisfied with second and third.
“Both of us were a little bit surprised by the gap,” he said.
“I mean Lewis has been strong all weekend, generally McLaren is very strong here, so we could see already in Q1 and Q2 that it would be very difficult to match them.
“But we will see later when we get the strategies for sure, but I think it was the maximum we could do.”
“So [I’m] very pleased so far.”
Vettel’s front-row starting berth boosted his chances of clinching the runner-up position in the drivers’ standings on Sunday, the 22-year-old having headed into the weekend two points ahead of Brawn’s Rubens Barrichello who will start fourth.
The German is confident that while his RB5 may not possess the same KERS power-boost function as Hamilton’s McLaren, it still has the inherent pace around the 3.45-mile track to ensure the team finishes the season on a high.
“I think tomorrow we should have a good race, the car is working well here, it just seems that our KERS button which we have on the steering wheel is not working!” he joked.
"So it’s not an easy one, but let’s see tomorrow.
“I think we do have a good race pace, the car is getting better throughout the distance so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”