Verstappen dominates final F1 qualifying of 2021 in Abu Dhabi

Max Verstappen stormed to a dominant pole position for Formula 1’s Abu Dhabi title decider, beating his title rival Lewis Hamilton by almost four tenths.

Red Bull used Sergio Perez to give Verstappen a monster tow for his first Q3 flying lap, which once set, would remain unbeaten thereafter.

Verstappen set a 1m22.109s that even he wouldn’t beat on his final flying lap to claim pole for the all-important Abu Dhabi finale.

Hamilton and Mercedes had no answer for Verstappen’s Q3 pace despite looking close throughout practice and the first two qualifying sessions.

Verstappen locked up on his first Q2 run on the mediums tyres and had to switch to set his fastest lap on the softs, meaning he’ll start the race on those tyres, while Hamilton will be on the mediums.

The gap between the title contenders in Q3 was 0.371s, with McLaren’s Lando Norris taking third place on the grid, albeit over eight tenths off Verstappen’s benchmark.

Perez claimed fourth ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, who, unlike Perez, was not used to give his team-mate a slipstream in Q3.

The second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was seventh ahead of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, who had his best Q3 laptime deleted for running wide at the final corner. If not for that deletion, he would’ve been sixth.

Alpine’s Esteban Ocon placed ninth ahead of McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo.

Q2 descended into traffic chaos at the crunch time with Sebastian Vettel having to completely stop on track such was the traffic in the final sector.

The Aston Martin driver felt he was blocked by Ocon in Q1 and had an incident with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly in Q2 at Turn 1 that will be investigated after the session, along with the traffic kerfuffle.

Vettel was dumped out of Q2 in 15th place behind the departing Alfa Romeo F1 driver Antonio Giovinazzi and his team-mate Lance Stroll.

Alpine’s Fernando Alonso blamed Ricciardo for his Q2 exit – “I cannot believe it, we will start in his position, it’s a clear impeding” – in reference to Alonso catching Ricciardo at the final corner at the end of his flying lap.

Gasly was the big-name Q2 casualty in 12th place behind Alonso, as he was eliminated from Q2 for the first time since Sochi.

“The brakes were f****** cool, I could not brake, Turn 1 Turn 5 was a disaster,” Gasly fumed to his team.

Nicholas Latifi was able to outqualify his outgoing Williams team-mate George Russell for only the second time this season, but both drivers were dumped out of Q1 in 16th and 17th places respectively.

Kimi Raikkonen qualified 18th for his final F1 race, with the Haas duo of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin once again forming the back row of the grid.

Qualifying Results