Hamilton by a country mile

GRANDPRIX.COM - Lewis Hamilton dominated qualifying at the new Yas Island circuit in Abu Dhabi.

The McLaren-Mercedes driver used his KERS system to great effect to snatch pole in the final moments of the qualifying session. The talking point, however, was not that Hamilton was on pole but rather the advantage he seemed to have over everyone else...

Nearly seven-tenths of a second is a major gap in modern F1. A real surprise.

There was an even bigger surprise later in the evening when the fuel weights were published. After the number-crunching was done, it became clear that Hamilton still had a half a second advantage over the rest of the field.

This meant that most of the teams shrugged their shoulders and went into Sunday with the firm belief that Hamilton would dominate the race. There would, of course, be the excitements of the first lap but if Lewis was ahead at the end of it, there seemed to be little hope for the rest of the field.

L3wi5 Hamiltoff's NOTE> I WONDER WHERE DID MCLAREN FOUND THIS SPEED ALL THE SUDDEN? OBVIOUSLY, I CANNOT BE ANYTHING ILLEGAL... THEY WOULD NEVER DO THAT.