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ABU DHABI - Briton Lewis Hamilton claimed the 17th pole position of his career Saturday when he topped the times in a floodlit qualifying session for Sunday's inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The 24-year-old Englishman, in his McLaren-Mercedes, continued the domination he has enjoyed for most of the weekend by clocking a best lap of one minute and 40.948 seconds, with a heavy fuel load, in the top ten shoot-out.
It was Hamilton's fourth pole of the season and provided convincing evidence that he is hunting victory in the final race of the 2009 season at the spectacular Yas Marina circuit.
Hamilton wound up seven-tenths of a second faster than German Sebastian Vettel, who was second ahead of his Red Bull team-mate Australian Mark Webber.
Brazilian veteran Rubens Barrichello, in probably his last race for the Brawn GP team with which he won the constructors championship in Brazil two weeks ago, was fourth-fastest ahead of newly-acclaimed champion Briton Jenson Button, his Brawn team-mate.
Italian Jarno Trulli was sixth for Toyota, ahead of Poland's Robert Kubica for BMW Sauber and his team-mate German Nick Heidfeld.
Another German, Nico Rosberg, was ninth for Williams ahead of 10th placed Swiss Sebastian Buemi, of Toro Rosso, who was celebrating his 21st birthday.
The first mini-session threw up a surprise immediately with the elimination of Ferrari-bound two-time champion Spaniard Fernando Alonso of Renault.
Alonso was only 16th quickest and failed to progress to Q2, wrecking his hopes of a decent result in his final race for the Renault team.
Also out with Alonso was Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi of Force India, German Adrian Sutil, his team-mate, Frenchman Romain Grosjean in the second Renault and the luckless Italian veteran Giancarlo Fisichella, who was 20th and last for Ferrari in what could be his final appearance for the team.
Hamilton was the fastest man in Q1 and it was the same story in Q2 as the dropping track temperature - the air temperature dropped to 29 degrees Celsius and track to 31 - caused problems with tyres for many of the teams.
Hamilton was the quickest man again in Q2 with a best time of one minute and 39.695 seconds, three-tenths better than Vettel's best time, with Button third and Webber fourth.
The second session saw Finn Kimi Raikkonen knocked out of qualifying for the top ten shootout in his last appearance for Ferrari, along with Japanese Kamui Kobayashi of Toyota, Finn Heikki Kovalainen who suffered a gearbox failure with his McLaren, Japanese Kazuki Nakajima of Williams and Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari of Toro Rosso.
Curiously, this meant that the two Spanish drivers, Alonso, the finest F1 driver of his time, and Alguersuari, only 19, will line up side by side on the eighth row of the grid.
- AFP/ir
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