Lewis Hamilton's slim hopes of a second drivers' championship flickered when he secured pole position for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and Formula One leader Sebastian Vettel was disqualified and forced to the back of the grid on Saturday.
Hamilton, the 2008 world champion, clocked 1 minute, 40.630 seconds in his McLaren on the Yas Marina circuit, 0.348 seconds quicker than Red Bull's Mark Webber. Pastor Maldonado of Williams will start third, followed by Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus and Jenson Button of McLaren.
Vettel was third fastest, but because he stopped his car soon after qualifying, he was called to a meeting with race stewards. They ruled that the Red Bull driver failed to have enough fuel in his tank to be tested after the session. He was excluded from qualifying but allowed to start at the back of the grid.
A similar fate befell Hamilton at the Spanish Grand Prix. He secured pole but the team forced him to stop the car on the track. The FIA also disqualified him and made him start the race last. He finished eighth.
Hamilton, last year's Abu Dhabi champion, was happy with his fourth pole of the season.
"It's the first time for a long time we've been ahead of the Red Bulls at the start of the race," he said. "The team has done a fantastic job all weekend. I don't know why the car works so well here. I guess it just suits the track."
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, 13 points behind Vettel in the drivers' standings with three races remaining, slumped to seventh. The Spaniard has struggled all weekend with pace, and last-minute changes by his team failed to improve the car's performance.
Vettel's qualifying session was anything but routine even before the stewards got involved, with brake problems limiting his first session to only two laps. He also grazed the wall at one point later in the session, briefly lost control in one turn, and then stopped on the track.
The German insisted he "was not sure what the issue was at the end" and vowed to give it his best today.
"Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said "for reasons yet to be fully understood, 850ml of the required one litre was pumped out of the car following post-race checks."
