Pastor Maldonado is sponsored by Venezuela's PDVSA. (Photo: Getty Images)

Williams
Pastor Maldonado looked strong all weekend but only just scraped out of Q2 in 10th place. However he then did a great job to take an excellent fourth, which became third after Vettel was demoted. Meanwhile Bruno Senna had some car problems in qualifying and could manage only 15th. Maldonado lost a place to Raikkonen at the start but gained one from Webber. However he hit KERS problems after the first safety car, which compromised his race. He was passed by Alonso and later spun after contact with Webber. He managed to recover to fifth by the flag. Senna was delayed by the first corner crash but scored some useful points with eighth.

Caterham
Marussia was a little closer to Caterham than usual, perhaps because Heikki Kovalainen had some DRS issues in qualifying. The Finn qualified 18th while he was split from team mate Vitaly Petrov in 20th by Charles Pic. Both men gained from the first lap carnage with Kovalainen moving up to 14th and his team mate to 15th. Heikki ran as high as 12th for a while but ultimately finished 13th, professing himself happy with the car’s performance. Petrov was less satisfied and complained of a lack of grip on his way to 16th place.

HRT
Recent updates including a new rear wing and air intake gave HRT a boost, and for once the team appeared to be on top of its brake overheating problems. Pedro de la Rosa was only 0.3 seconds off Timo Glock in 23rd while Narain Karthikeyan was slowed by traffic problems and took his customary 24th. Vettel’s penalty gifted them both a place. De La Rosa didn’t get away on the formation lap, and had to start from the pitlane. After a long afternoon he finished 17th and last. Karthikeyan gained some places at the start but on lap nine he slowed with a hydraulic problem and was hit hard by Rosberg, the incident bringing out a safety car.

Marussia-Cosworth driver Timo Glock of Germany monitors a screen in his car. (Photo: Getty Images)

Marussia
Perhaps helped by the fact he tested a year earlier, Charles Pic had his best qualifying of the year in Abu Dhabi, earning 19th spot and getting to within 0.133 secpnds of the fastest Caterham. Timo Glock was less happy in qualifying and was 21st, both men then moving up a place when Vettel was penalized. Glock had a good first lap and got ahead of Pic among others, although in the process he damaged his front wing. Despite that he had a good race to 14th, beating Petrov along the way. Pic did not have such a good start and retired with an engine problem after 41 laps.

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED