F1 Abu Dhabi GP: Verstappen beats Leclerc for final pole

In a final qualifying session where the soft tyres were good for just a single flying lap – unlike the multiple fliers seen last week in Las Vegas – Lewis Hamilton was also knocked out in Q2 for Mercedes and Sergio Perez rued a track limits mistake in the other RB19.

In Q3, Verstappen put in a 1m23.445s on his first of two runs, with the world champion well clear of the rest at this stage as he was the only one to use new tyres.

On the second goes, Verstappen ran at the rear of the group of leaders to this point, but was unable to improve his time.

The rest did, but not by enough, with Leclerc going from just over a second off after the first Q3 runs to shoot up to second on his final attempt – ending up 0.139s to Verstappen.

Piastri took third ahead of George Russell, who climbed the order with Q3’s quickest time in the final sector to rise to fourth.

Lando Norris had looked like Verstappen’s biggest threat but he blew his shot with the new tyres right at the end due to a massive sideways moment at Turn 13 coming out from under the Yas Marina track’s sector three-straddling W hotel, which cost the Briton 0.4s.

Then came Yuki Tsunoda, Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg, as Perez ’s final lap was good enough for sixth but he lost it for running too wide out of Turn 1, where he had had a wild sideways moment on the first Q3 attempts. That pushed Perez down to ninth, as Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10.

Photo by: James Sutton / Motorsport Images

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23

Verstappen traversed Q2 with just a single run on new softs, while the rest took a sighter on used softs at the start of the middle segment.

Come the end with everybody bar Verstappen out on new softs, Russell’s improvement eliminated his Mercedes team-mate Hamilton, who complained on his way back to the pits, “there’s something wrong with this car”.

Then came Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Alex Albon and Daniel Ricciardo, with Albon having run off-set for his second run and completed his final flier well ahead of the rest – just as Williams had done at the end of the opening segment.

In Q1 where the entire field was covered by one-second, Perez’s last-gasp improvement moved him through in second behind Verstappen, which knocked out Carlos Sainz along with Kevin Magnussen, Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu and Logan Sargeant.

The first four completed personal best efforts on their second and final fliers, with Sainz complaining about traffic impacting his last run, but Sargeant lost both his Q1 times for running beyond track limits at Turn 1.

His best of those two laps was his first, but that still would not have been fast enough to progress.

Gasly and Piastri faced a post-qualifying stewards’ investigation for a possible impeding incident late in Q3.

F1 Abu Dhabi GP - Qualifying results

Main Information Additional Data Driver Info

     

Driver Info			Main Information Additional Data
Cla	Driver	#		Chassis	Engine	Time	km/h
1	M. Verstappen Red Bull Racing	1		Red Bull	Red Bull	1'23.445	227.833
2	C. Leclerc Ferrari	16		Ferrari	Ferrari	+0.139 1'23.584	227.455
3	O. Piastri McLaren	81		McLaren	Mercedes	+0.337 1'23.782	226.917
4	G. Russell Mercedes	63		Mercedes	Mercedes	+0.343 1'23.788	226.901
5	L. Norris McLaren	4		McLaren	Mercedes	+0.371 1'23.816	226.825
6	Y. Tsunoda AlphaTauri	22		AlphaTauri	Red Bull	+0.523 1'23.968	226.414
7	F. Alonso Aston Martin Racing	14		Aston Martin	Mercedes	+0.639 1'24.084	226.102
8	N. Hulkenberg Haas F1 Team	27		Haas	Ferrari	+0.663 1'24.108	226.037
9	S. Perez Red Bull Racing	11		Red Bull	Red Bull	+0.726 1'24.171	225.868
10	P. Gasly Alpine	10		Alpine	Renault	+1.103 1'24.548	224.861
11	L. Hamilton Mercedes	44		Mercedes	Mercedes	+0.914 1'24.359	225.365
12	E. Ocon Alpine	31		Alpine	Renault	+0.946 1'24.391	225.279
13	L. Stroll Aston Martin Racing	18		Aston Martin	Mercedes	+0.977 1'24.422	225.197
14	A. Albon Williams	23		Williams	Mercedes	+0.994 1'24.439	225.151
15	D. Ricciardo AlphaTauri	3		AlphaTauri	Red Bull	+0.997 1'24.442	225.143
16	C. Sainz Ferrari	55		Ferrari	Ferrari	+1.293 1'24.738	224.357
17	K. Magnussen Haas F1 Team	20		Haas	Ferrari	+1.319 1'24.764	224.288
18	V. Bottas Alfa Romeo	77		Alfa Romeo	Ferrari	+1.343 1'24.788	224.225
19	Z. Guanyu Alfa Romeo	24		Alfa Romeo	Ferrari	+1.714 1'25.159	223.248
20	L. Sargeant Williams	2		Williams	Mercedes
View full results