Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: Max Verstappen on pole with Lewis Hamilton second



The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix can be seen on 5 Live and the website.

Max Verstappen took a stunning pole position in Abu Dhabi, the first blow in his title decider against Lewis Hamilton.

Verstappen was quicker than the Mercedes driver after his first lap.

Verstappen and Hamilton are tied on points. Verstappen will be the champion if neither finish, because he has one more win.

Hamilton was more than a second behind Verstappen after their first laps and although he improved on his final run he could not get close to the Dutch driver.

There is a strategy twist because Verstappen and Hamilton will start the race on different tyres, the Dutch on the soft and the Englishman on the medium.

In the second session, Verstappen locked his brakes and had to switch to the soft tyres, which defined the starting tire.

McLaren's Lando Norris took third, ahead of Red Bull's Sergio Perez.

The second Mercedes was behind the one of Carlos Sainz.

The title could be decided by a crash between the two.

What a performance from Verstappen.

Verstappen almost won the pole in Saudi Arabia.

He crashed at the final corner in Jeddah on his way to one of the laps of the season. The blow for Hamilton came at the end of the race.

Verstappen was aided by a slipstream from Perez, which gained him 0.2 seconds on the straight, but he was also nearly the same margin quicker than Hamilton in the final sector, which has most of the corners.

Verstappen said it was an amazing feeling. I am happy with this. It is what we wanted, but it is not easy with their recent form.

He knew that he would be forced to go to the softs when he first locked the wheel, but he played down the disadvantage of starting on the soft.

He said he felt good on both tires. It is a bit cooler in the evening so soft tires are a bit easier to use. We will see tomorrow.

Hamilton, who was booed by the crowd as he did his television interview after the session, said that Max did a great lap and that they couldn't compete with that time at the end.

The last lap was clean and I dropped a bit of time in Turn Five in the first lap. I couldn't go any quicker. I couldn't beat that time. He deserved that pole.

Through practice, it was looking strong.

The driver who has been the stand-out this year is Norris.

The interloper is Norris.

Red Bull and Mercedes wanted Perez and Bottas to join their team-mates in the top four, but neither was able to because of an excellent performance from Norris.

The British driver snuck ahead of Perez to put his McLaren at the head of the second row.

"We were confident all weekend that we could do a good performance, but probably not to be this high on the grid."

He was unsure if he could handle the first lap or if he could get in the middle of the title fight.

It will be a disappointment to Mercedes, as it effectively removes their options to use him as a strategic option against Verstappen in the race.

He is in a sandwich with Charles Leclerc, the Alpha Tauri of Yuki Tsunoda, Alpine's Esteban Ocon and McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is held in the evening.

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Fans of Hamilton are in Abu Dhabi.

As are Verstappen's.

The last F1 race was a sad one.