Background

Vitantonio Liuzzi returned to Hispania for the race, having been replaced by Narain Karthikeyan for the Indian Grand Prix to make way for him to drive in front of his home crowd.^[3]

Williams driver Pastor Maldonado took a ten-place grid penalty for exceeding his engine quota for the season.^[4] Drivers are entitled to use up to eight engines over the course of the season without penalty, but Maldonado's eighth and final engine was damaged beyond repair when he retired from the Indian Grand Prix.

In the week before the race, it was announced that the teams would trial several new compounds of tyre rubber in Friday practice, to offer tyre supplier Pirelli more feedback on their planned 2012 tyre compounds.^[5] Tyre supplier Pirelli brought its white-banded medium compound tyre as the harder "prime" tyre and the yellow-banded soft compound as the softer "option" compound, as opposed to the previous year where Bridgestone brought the red-banded super-soft compound as the option.^[6]

Formula Renault 3.5 Series champion Robert Wickens and runner-up Jean-Éric Vergne drove during free practice; Vergne drove for Toro Rosso,^[7] while Wickens drove for Virgin in place of Jérôme d'Ambrosio.^[8] GP2 Series champion Romain Grosjean also drove during free practice, for Renault.^[9]

The circuit included two DRS zones, each with their own independent detection points.^[10] The first detection point was located just before the Turn 7 hairpin, with its corresponding activation point positioned halfway down the long back straight; the second detection point was set after the exit of Turn 9, with its activation point adjacent to the secondary pit lane at Turn 10.^[11]

The drivers' representative on the stewards panel for the Grand Prix weekend was Derek Warwick.

Free practice

The first practice session saw Jenson Button set the fastest lap time, one tenth of a second ahead of Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton had set the early pace, using Pirelli's experimental development tyres, but Webber and Sebastian Vettel surpassed him, and Button set his fastest lap time as the session drew to a close. Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa experienced several off-track excursions between them. Romain Grosjean set a faster lap time than teammate Vitaly Petrov, though Petrov was forced to abandon his car during his final run with engine troubles. Rubens Barrichello was also forced out with technical problems, failing to set a lap time.

The second session was known for two separate incidents at Turn 1; Vettel spun and became stuck in the outside barrier early in the session, while Alonso crashed at the same place. Hamilton went on to set the fastest time, two-tenths faster than Button's fastest time in the first session.

Qualifying

Qualifying began with dusk approaching in Abu Dhabi, with Vettel looking to equal Nigel Mansell's record of 14 poles in a season. In the first session Rubens Barrichello had an oil leak, therefore unable to set a lap time, but was allowed to race. He joined the Lotuses, HRTs and Virgins in failing to make it to the second part of qualifying. In the second qualifying session, which took place as the sun went down, there was a red flag mid way, due to a loose bollard, which Massa drove over but escaped without damage. When the bollard was removed the session resumed. Sauber, Renault, Toro Rosso, and the remaining Williams car of Pastor Maldonado were all knocked out. Pastor Maldonado had been given a 10 place grid penalty for a ninth engine, so started in 23rd, just in front of his teammate on the back row of the grid. Hamilton led most of the final qualifying session, only to be beaten to pole position by Vettel, on Vettel's last lap. The order then followed with Button in 3rd, Webber 4th, then Alonso, Massa, Rosberg, Schumacher, Sutil, and di Resta, having not set a time in order to save tyres for the race.

Race

Vettel led into the first corner, but an unexplained puncture on his right rear tyre caused him to spin off the track at Turn 2 and suffer his first retirement of the season. Hamilton led the race afterwards, and won the race mostly untroubled. Alonso finished second after he overtook Button on lap 1, Button eventually finished third. Webber dropped to behind Alonso at the start, but remained fourth after Vettel's retirement. He battled with Button throughout the race, but to no avail, eventually finishing fourth. He was followed by Felipe Massa, the two Mercedes, the two Force Indias, and the two Saubers - with Kobayashi taking the final point and Pérez missing out in eleventh. Jérôme d'Ambrosio, Sébastien Buemi and Daniel Ricciardo were the other retirements of the race.

Qualifying

More information Pos, No ...

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3	Grid
1	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:40.478	1:38.516	1:38.481	1
2	3	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:39.782	1:38.434	1:38.622	2
3	4	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:40.227	1:39.097	1:38.631	3
4	2	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:40.167	1:38.821	1:38.858	4
5	5	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:41.380	1:39.058	1:39.058	5
6	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:41.592	1:39.623	1:39.695	6
7	8	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:41.120	1:39.420	1:39.773	7
8	7	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1:42.605	1:40.554	1:40.662	8
9	14	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:40.595	1:40.205	1:40.768	9
10	15	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:41.064	1:40.414	no time	10
11	17	Sergio Pérez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:41.311	1:40.874		11
12	10	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1:40.955	1:40.919		12
13	18	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:41.737	1:41.009		13
14	9	Bruno Senna	Renault	1:41.391	1:41.079		14
15	19	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:41.386	1:41.162		15
16	16	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1:41.613	1:41.240		16
17	12	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Cosworth	1:42.258	1:41.760		231
18	20	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Renault	1:42.979			17
19	21	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Renault	1:43.884			18
20	24	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	1:44.515			19
21	22	Daniel Ricciardo	HRT-Cosworth	1:44.641			20
22	25	Jérôme d'Ambrosio	Virgin-Cosworth	1:44.699			21
23	23	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT-Cosworth	1:45.159			22
107% time: 1:46.766
24	11	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	no time			242
Source:[12]

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Notes

^1 – Pastor Maldonado was given a ten-place grid penalty for using his ninth engine of the season, exceeding the limit of eight engines.^[4]

^2 – Rubens Barrichello failed to set a lap time after his team discovered an oil leak following an engine change. As he had set practice times within 107% of the fastest driver's time, he was given permission to start the race.^[13]

Race

More information Pos, No ...

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	3	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	55	1:37:11.886	2	25
2	5	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	55	+8.457	5	18
3	4	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	55	+25.871	3	15
4	2	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	55	+35.784	4	12
5	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	55	+50.578	6	10
6	8	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	55	+52.317	7	8
7	7	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	55	+1:15.964	8	6
8	14	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	55	+1:17.122	9	4
9	15	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	55	+1:41.087	10	2
10	16	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	54	+1 Lap	16	1
11	17	Sergio Pérez	Sauber-Ferrari	54	+1 Lap	11
12	11	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	54	+1 Lap	24
13	10	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	54	+1 Lap	12
14	12	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Cosworth	54	+1 Lap3	23
15	19	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	54	+1 Lap3	15
16	9	Bruno Senna	Renault	54	+1 Lap	14
17	20	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Renault	54	+1 Lap	17
18	21	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Renault	53	+2 Laps	18
19	24	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	53	+2 Laps	19
20	23	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT-Cosworth	53	+2 Laps	22
Ret	22	Daniel Ricciardo	HRT-Cosworth	47	Alternator	20
Ret	18	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	18	Hydraulics	13
Ret	25	Jérôme d'Ambrosio	Virgin-Cosworth	17	Brakes	21
Ret	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1	Puncture damage	1
Source:[14]

Close

Notes

^3 – Pastor Maldonado (30 seconds) and Jaime Alguersuari (20 seconds) were given time penalties for ignoring blue flags, but did not alter their respective finishing positions.^[15]