F1 Abu Dhabi GP: Verstappen beats Hamilton to pole for title decider
It looked as though Mercedes had the advantage going into Q3, but a combination of fantastic&💛nbsp;teamwork from Red Bull and a brilliant lap from Verstappen enabled him to sna✨tch his 10th pole of the season ahead of his championship rival.
Verstappen was boosted by a tow from Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez on hi♛s first run to go half a second clea🃏r of Hamilton, before the Mercedes driver responded with an improvement on his final Q3 effort.
But it was not enough to prevent Verstappen from se🍨curing a comfortable pole with the Dutchman finishing qualifying 0.371s faster than Hamilton.
It sets up a mouth-watering prospect with the two champiꦉonship protagonists sharing the front row of the grid heading into their winner-takes-all contest.
But Verstappen will start Sunday’s race on softer tyres than Hamilton after Red Bull opted for a different stra⛦tegic approach when Verstappen flat-spotted his medium tyres in Q2 and switched to softs.
Verstappen wi꧂ll look to take advantage of the grippier soft tyres to maintain his position ahead of Hamilton, who will start the race on mediums.
Behind the battle for pole, Lando 🐭Norris produced a stunning late lap in his McLaren to snatch third on the grid ahead of Perez’s Red Bull.
Carlos Sainz put his Ferrari fifth ahead of Valtteri Botta﷽s, who was only sixth-fas𝓡test for Mercedes.
The second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was seventh, ahead of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon’s Alpine, while Daniel Ricciard🤡o completed the top-10 for McLaren.
Fernando Alon♚so missed out on a Q3 spot by just 0.012s as he took 11th for Alpine, ahead of AlphaTauri’s P🐎ierre Gasly.
Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll outpaced Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo or 13th, while Sebastian🐬 Vettel was eliminated in 15th after getting heavily compromised in a messy traffic queue at the end of Q2.
Nicholas Latifi out-qualified George Russell for their last race as Williams teammates before Russell🍬 makes the switch to Mercedes.
Just 0.085s separated the Williams pairing as Latifi secured 16༒th place ahead of Russell.
Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen was 18th-fastest in 🧸his final F1 qualifying session before the Finn calls time on his illustrious career following Sunday’s grand prix.
Raikkonen ended up just a tenth clear of Mick Schumacher, who was over seven-tenths quicker than Haas teamඣmate Nikita Mazepin.
Lewis ꦓregularly attends Grands Prix for mahbx.com around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.
