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Verstappen takes pole position for season-ending Abu Dhabi GP / Photo: © AFP
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Verstappen takes pole position for season-ending Abu Dhabi GP
Red Bull's Max Verstappen outgunned his two title rivals from McLaren to take pole position for the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and strengthen his bid for a fifth successive title.
Championship leader Lando Norris, who is 12 points ahead of Verstappen and will win the title if he finishes on the podium, will start alongside him on the front row with McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in third.
George Russell, who was quickest in third practice earlier in the day in his Mercedes, set the early pace in qualifying and will start from fourth with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc fifth.
"We found a bit more lap time and I'm just incredibly happy to be in first," said Verstappen.
"That's the only thing we can do, we can control, to maximise what we have and what we can with the car and we definitely did that in qualifying."
Grid position has been crucial at Abu Dhabi with each of the last 12 races won by cars starting on the front row, 10 of them by the pole-sitter.
"We did everything we could. I think my lap was pretty good, I was pretty happy," said Norris.
"Of course, (I'm) disappointed not to be on pole for the final weekend but we just weren't fast enough today. We'll have to try and do it tomorrow."
It is Verstappen's 48th pole and he will need outscore Norris by 13 points if he is to take the title on Sunday or win the race and pray that the Englishman finishes off the podium.
He also needs to make sure that Piastri does not out-score him by five points or more.
"I will try and win the race but also in the back of my mind we want to try and score a lot of points and try and win the championship," said Verstappen.
"We need a little bit of luck from what is happening behind us."
With Yuki Tsunoda, in his last race as a Red Bull driver, giving his teammate a 'tow' on the way into his quick lap in Q3, Verstappen flew to the top of the leaderboard with time of 1 minute 22.207 seconds.
The McLarens scrapped it out for the other place on to the front row with Norris finishing 0.201sec behind Verstappen, just 0.029sec ahead of Piastri.
For the third race running, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who had a crash in third practice, failed to bring his Ferrari out of Q1.
It was another nightmare setback for the Briton who has the best record of all at the Yas Marina Circuit with five pole positions and five wins to his name.
He will take some solace, perhaps, from the memory of last season when he finished fourth in the race after again starting 16th on the grid.
F. Dumont--BTZ
