Brawn GP's Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button qualified in fourth and fifth positions respectively today for the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix which takes place at the Yas Marina Circuit on Sunday.

The action began in daylight with darkness rapidly falling over the course of the qualifying hour and the floodlights coming on to illuminate the track. Rubens and Jenson ran consistently in the top ten for the first two sessions, favouring the harder prime tyre, and progressing easily through to the final qualifying session.

A close battle at the front in Q3 saw Rubens put his Brawn-Mercedes car on the second row of the grid in fourth position, with team-mate Jenson, who was struggling with understeer, on the third row in fifth place ahead of tomorrow's 55-lap race.

“We went into qualifying in pretty good shape this evening having confirmed some of our conclusions on the tyres during the practice session this afternoon,” said Ross Brawn. “The qualifying hour went to plan in Q1 and Q2 although we struggled, like many others, with traffic and achieving clear laps when the tyres were at their best. Unfortunately in Q3, Jenson suffered with a significant vibration on his last set of tyres which we are now investigating and this compromised his performance. However fourth position on the grid for Rubens and fifth place for Jenson is a good result. We should be in reasonable shape for the race tomorrow and are looking forward to the challenge of finishing the season on a high."