Formula One: Hamilton's title hopes just alive as Vettel penalised Lewis Hamilton's slim hopes of winning the Formula One drivers" championship stayed alive when he secured pole position for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and leader Sebastian Vettel was disqualified and forced to the back of the grid. 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. Vettel was third fastest, but because he stopped his car soon after qualifying, he was called to a meeting with race stewards. Hours later, they ruled that the Red Bull driver failed to have enough fuel in his tank to be tested after the session. As a result, he was excluded from qualifying but allowed to start at the back of the grid. Hamilton said: "It's the first time for a long time we've been ahead of the Red Bulls at the start of the race. The team has done a fantastic job all weekend. 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. Pastor Maldonado of Williams will start third followed by Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus and Jenson Button of McLaren. 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. Vettel has 240 points, 13 ahead of Alonso with Raikkonen a further 54 points back. Webber is six points behind him, two ahead of Hamilton. Webber and Hamilton are barely alive in the championship race, needing to win every race and hope Vettel doesn't finish to have a chance. We have three races. Let's try to win them," McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said. It looks like Sebastian might have a bit of a problem. If we score 25 points tomorrow and Sebastian scores none, then we will start to get a little more jumpy about it. 1 Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren 1:40.630 2 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:40.978 3 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Williams 1:41.226 4 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus 1:41.260 5 Jenson Button (GB) McLaren 1:41.290 6 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:41.582 6 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes 1:41.603 8 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:41.723 9 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Lotus 1:41.778 10 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Force India 1:42.019 Also: 12 Paul di Resta (GB) Force India 1:42.218 Sebastian Vettel relegated to back of grid from third. 1 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 240pts 2 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 227 3 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus 173 4 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 167 5 Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren 165 6 Jenson Button (GB) McLaren 141 7 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes 93 8 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Lotus 90 9 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 89 10 Sergio Perez (Mex) Sauber 66 Also: 13 Paul di Resta (GB) Force India 44