Mark Webber reckoned the head of the Abu Dhabi grid accurately represented the formbook over the second half of the season after McLaren beat the Red Bull and Brawn drivers to pole.
Lewis Hamilton claimed his fourth pole in the last seven races by a crushing 0.7s for Sunday’s season finale, the Briton dashing RBR’s hopes of a front-row lockout after Sebastian Vettel and Webber had moved to the front with their own final laps.
But with the RBR duo still ending up directly ahead of their Brawn rivals, third-placed Webber said the order was a good illustration of how the season’s second half had played out, with McLaren proving particularly strong this weekend.
“The grid tonight is the story of the second part of the championship isn’t it,” he said.
“Lewis has been here and there at a lot of venues – clearly they [McLaren] have been very strong here.
“I enjoyed qualifying tonight and Brawn are just there as well, so it’s very much a message of how the second part of the championship’s gone.”
Webber and Vettel had been languishing towards the bottom of the Q3 times before their big late improvements, which were enough to get both ahead of season-long rivals Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button.
The Australian, who won the last race at Interlagos, reckons RBR maximised its potential so was therefore content with third place.
“We will see when we get the [fuel] weights [for the full picture], but also Seb and I have been pushing as hard as we can," Webber said.
“I was pretty happy considering when I did my lap in the session, obviously other people can run after, so I was pretty happy.”