Max Verstappen takes a somewhat surprising pole position ahead of title protagonist, Lewis Hamilton. Lando Norris takes a phenomenal 3rd ahead of Sergio Perez.
Q1
The most important qualifying session in the title race started with an advantage to Mercedes. Hamilton and Bottas took the first session 1-2 ahead of Verstappen and Perez, lining up in formation.
Running was smooth but with 6 minutes to go a very bizzare red flag came out for Mazepin knocking a bollard on to the track, this was then run over by a McLaren. The flag was only out briefly and numerous cars rushed back out on to the track for their final runs.
Russell’s final qualifying for Williams put him behind Latifi for only the second time. Raikkonen’s final qualifying session of his career left him an unremarkable 18th. As per usual Schumacher finished 19th with Mazepin 20th.
Eliminated:
- 16th Latifi
- 17th Russell
- 18th Raikkonen
- 19th Schumacher
Q2
Initial runs on the same compound put Verstappen only 0.004s behind Hamilton. Bottas lined up 3rd but, Sainz took the grid by surprise by knocking Hamilton off the top spot by 0.011s.
As the cars came out for their final runs, the predictable traffic jam started to take place. Almost 10 cars were trying to occupy the same part of the track. Hamilton retook the lead, but the Red Bulls behind had bolted on the soft tyre. This placed them in a clear 1-2 and it also means that they will start the race on the soft compound, in comparison to Mercedes’ medium tyre.
Stroll was the first driver unable to break out of Q2, his first run placed him in 12th, later falling to 13th. Alonso was just pushed out and will start the race 11th, ahead of, surprisingly, Gasly. Giovinazzi will start his last race in 14th, while Vettel struggled with yellow flags, ending up 15th.
Eliminated:
- 11th Alonso
- 12th Gasly
- 13th Stroll
- 14th Giovinazzi
- 15th Vettel
Q3
In a surprise twist, Verstappen took the provisional fastest time. It appeared that Perez was able to give Verstappen a bit of a tow in sector 2, placing the Red Bull 0.5s ahead of the Mercedes.
Tsunoda provided another shock, placing his Alpha Tauri in 4th, behind Perez but ahead of Bottas. Unfortunately, this time was deleted due to track limits.
During the tense final runs, Hamilton was absolutely pushing his Mercedes around the Yas Marina track, but it was not enough and Verstappen’s first run was enough to give him a shock pole position. Hamilton will start 2nd, 0.37s behind. Norris leapt to 3rd almost unsighted, knocking down Perez to 4th. Sainz finished a solid 5th while Bottas is not in the best position for Mercedes in 6th. Leclerc came 7th ahead of a strong Tsunoda while Ocon and Ricciardo rounded out the top 10.
Results:
- Verstappen
- Hamilton
- Norris
- Perez
- Sainz
- Bottas
- Leclerc
- Tsunoda
- Ocon
- Ricciardo
Verstappen fans will be rejoicing, while Hamilton fans must still be quietly confident heading into tomorrow. One race to go, only one can leave 2021 champion.
Featured Image Credit: @F1 Official Twitter
