Red Bull’s Max Verstappen beat Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to take his 12th pole in 22 races this year at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Verstappen was 0.139 seconds ahead of Leclerc, while McLaren’s Lando Norris appeared to lose a chance for pole with an error on his final lap.
A slide at Turn 13 left Norris down in fifth place behind team-mate Oscar Piastri and Mercedes’ George Russell.
Lewis Hamilton was 11th – out of the top 10 for the second race in a row.
Hamilton said to his race engineer Peter Bonnington over the team radio before returning to the pits: “There’s something wrong with this car, mate.”
The seven-time world champion was 0.346secs slower than Russell in the second session.
Although the result looks entirely predictable on paper, within Red Bull there was some doubt as to whether Verstappen could secure pole after a difficult weekend until qualifying.
Leclerc has taken pole position at three of the past four races and Verstappen had appeared to be struggling through the three practice sessions, complaining of his car bottoming and bouncing, and suffering from a lack of front grip on Friday and lack of rear on Saturday.
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