Lando Norris will start the final race of the 2024 Formula 1 season in pole position with his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri locking out the front row at Abu Dhabi.
Charles Leclerc lost his best lap in Q2 to a track limits violation for Ferrari, which boosts McLaren’s chances of taking the constructors’ title even further given its 1-2 result, while Lewis Hamilton’s final weekend for Mercedes included a shock Q1 exit.
Max Verstappen had looked in control through the opening segments, with the four-time champion the only driver to get through to Q3 with two sets of new softs remaining.
The Red Bull driver used his first to lead with a time of one minute, 22.945 seconds, despite with a wild slide out of the final corner, with Norris trailing by 0.004 seconds at this phase.
On the final runs, Verstappen ran last of the pack, but did not improve, as the added grip punch of the new softs got McLaren back to the pacesetting position it had established in FP1 and FP2.
Piastri recorded a lap with one minute, 22.804 seconds, which shuffled outgoing Haas star Nico Hulkenberg back from the provisional pole he had starred with the opening effort on the final runs – Hulk eventually ending up behind Sainz in fourth.
Norris then came out on top over his teammate by 0.21 seconds with the quickest time in the final sector, with Piastri’s Q3 appearance starting with him temporarily losing his first run time as he flirted with the track limits exiting Turn 1.
Behind on the final fliers, Verstappen only set a personal best in the final sector and so did not go quicker overall – the Red Bull driver finishing ahead of Pierre Gasly’s Alpine and George Russell for Mercedes in fifth.
Then came Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, while Sergio Perez unable to beat Valtteri Bottas’s Sauber to ninth, with the Red Bull driver rounding out the top ten in what could be his final Formula 1 race, according to the paddock rumours.
In Q2, Leclerc looked to have progressed as the fastest, with previous segment leader Verstappen even temporarily out of his car in the pits, but the Ferrari driver slipped fractionally beyond track limits at Turn 1 and so lost his time of one minute, 22.985 seconds personal best.
Unlike Red Bull with Perez in Q1, Ferrari could not get Leclerc’s time reinstated as a patch of blue kerb paint was visible as he went deep through the left-hander and his fall to P14 means he will start from the last row of the grid with his battery-change grid penalty.
The other Q2 fallers were RB’s Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson in P11 and P12, with Lance Stroll P13 and Kevin Magnussen P15.
In Q1, Hamilton was the big shock to be eliminated – the Mercedes driver down towards the drop zone after the initial runs and with a big track improvement factor evidenced from his former teammate Bottas jumping from P16 to second in the segment eventually topped by Leclerc.
At the end of Hamilton’s final lap, where he was trailing Magnussen all around, the Haas of Magnussen cutting Turn 14 and knocking a bollard into his path meant the seven-time world champion had to do the final corners with his car’s handling compromised.
He was unable to set a personal best at the line – ending up out being Alex Albon and Zhou Guanyu and along with Franco Colapinto and Jack Doohan.
So an exciting qualifying session at Abu Dhabi with McLaren taking a front row grid slot which will play a part in securing that constructors’ championship. Kudos to Lando Norris in taking pole for the team.
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, qualifying results:
1 Lando Norris McLaren 1:22.595
2 Oscar Piastri McLaren 1:22.804
3 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1:22.824
4 Nico Hulkenberg Haas 1:22.886
5 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:22.945
6 Pierre Gasly Alpine 1:22.984
7 George Russell Mercedes 1:23.132
8 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 1:23.196
9 Valtteri Bottas Sauber 1:23.204
10 Sergio Perez Red Bull 1″23.264
11 Yuki Tsunoda RB 1:23.419
12 Liam Lawson RB 1:23.472
13 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1:23.784
14 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:23.877
15 Zhou Guanyu Sauber 1:23.880
16 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:23.887
17 Jack Doohan Alpine 1:24.105
18 Alexander Albon Williams 1:23.821*
19 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:23.833**
20 Franco Colapinto Williams 1:23.912*
*Five-place grid penalty for gearbox change
**Ten-place grid penalty for battery change
Lando Norris will start from pole position for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the Briton leading team mate Oscar Piastri to secure a McLaren front row lockout on a weekend where the squad are hoping to clinch a long-awaited constructors’ title.
After Max Verstappen initially set a time strong enough for provisional pole during the first runs of Q3, it was Norris who surged ahead during the decisive final laps on an effort of 1m 22.595s, putting him 0.209s clear of Piastri.
Carlos Sainz was third for Ferrari, while Nico Hulkenberg grabbed a sensational fourth in his last event for Haas. Verstappen ultimately had to settle for fifth, ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly in sixth and the Mercedes of George Russell in seventh.
Fernando Alonso took P8 for Aston Martin, just beating Valtteri Bottas whose progression to Q3 earned applause from the Kick Sauber team, while Sergio Perez completed the top 10 in the Red Bull.
Charles Leclerc’s session came to an end in Q2 when his pace-setting final time was deleted for track limits, putting him in P14, which will become a back-of-the-grid start owing to a 10-place grid penalty given on Friday.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/norris-clinches-pole-position-for-abu-dhabu-gp-ahead-of-piastri-as-mclaren.7KEE85AuggglAopzsSmBX3
Lewis Hamilton’s final qualifying for Mercedes in Formula 1 ended in a disappointing Q1 exit on Saturday after a flying bollard got trapped under his car.
The seven-time world champion was on his final effort to put in a lap that would get him through to Q2 when he came upon a slow Kevin Magnussen in the Haas.
The Dane, aware Hamilton was coming up behind him in the hotel section, moved off the track and behind the kerbs to try not to block the Mercedes.
However, in doing so, Magnussen struck the bollard that is on the inside apex, flinging it across the track just as Hamilton arrived.
With no time to react, Hamilton ran over the bollard and it got trapped underneath his car as he attempted to finish the lap.
The aerodynamics would have been badly affected and a lacklustre final sector meant the Briton missed out on getting into the top 15 times by less than one tenth of a second, ending up 18th out of 20 drivers.
Clearly angry about the situation and the lack of pace, Hamilton came on the team radio straight afterwards and said: “That was bad man, Jesus”.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hamilton-disaster-as-loose-bollard-puts-him-out-of-q1-in-final-mercedes-outing/10680276/
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has apologised to Lewis Hamilton for the “idiotic” mistake that led to the seven-time champion being dumped out in Q1 for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Hamilton’s hopes of delivering a strong result in his final race weekend for Mercedes already appear to be over after he ended up P18 in qualifying, having failed to make it through to Q2. He will start P16 thanks to penalties for Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon.
While Hamilton’s hopes were not helped by him striking a bollard that had been flung in to his path by the Haas of Kevin Magnussen near the end of his lap, Wolff thinks a much bigger factor was that Mercedes had left things so late for their drivers to get their final runs in.
That left Hamilton exposed to more traffic than if he had gone earlier, which was proven with the Magnussen bollard incident.
Speaking to Sky, Wolff said he was angry about what had happened and said there was no excuse for what the team had done.
“I just need to apologise to Lewis, and also to everyone in the team that worked so hard in making it a great end for him,” explained Wolff.
“He was the quicker guy with that kind of set-up that we choose on the car, also to experiment for next year, and we totally let him down.
“An idiotic mistake of not going earlier. Inexcusable. Inexcusable. I have rarely been so down about what happened.
“It maybe summarises the last races we had with him. But this is the worst part of it, because it was just idiotic.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/wolff-says-mercedes-error-that-cost-hamilton-was-inexcusable/10680343/
Lando Norris says McLaren wants to secure the Formula 1 constructors’ championship “in style” by winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after locking out the front row.
The Woking-based squad is 21 points ahead of Ferrari heading into the F1 season finale at the Yas Marina circuit on Sunday.
McLaren’s performance this weekend has made it clear favourite to pull off the feat, with its MCL38 appearing to have a clear edge over the opposition as Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri secured a 1-2 on the grid.
The squad could approach the final round just taking it easy and shadowing home its Italian rival, whose best hopes lie in third-place starter Carlos Sainz.
However, a bullish Norris says the intention is not to play the numbers game and do just enough to bring home the team title. Instead, it is about wrapping up things for McLaren by delivering the victory that guarantees it.
“We’ve got to beat Ferrari, that’s the aim, but we want to do it in style, and we want to win,” said Norris after securing pole position. “I want to win, so we know what we have to do.
“But we’re keeping our heads down. We’re staying focused, but we’re here to win every race possible, and tomorrow we’re going to have a good chance at least with one of our cars.
“We’ll be giving it everything we got, but knowing in the back of our minds what we really have to do to achieve our big goals.
“I’m very happy. The team have done an incredible job, so a big thanks to them. And yeah, it is always a nice qualifying to end the year.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/norris-out-to-win-f1-constructors-title-for-mclaren-in-style/10680320/
Charles Leclerc is not giving up on winning the constructors’ championship with Ferrari, despite a poor qualifying session that leaves him at the back of the grid.
Ferrari is 21 points behind McLaren going into the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi as the Scuderia aims for a first team title since 2008.
However, with McLaren pair Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri locking out the front row at the Yas Marina Circuit, Ferrari’s dwindling chances were only further hit when Leclerc saw a lap time deleted for exceeding track limits, seeing him eliminated in Q2.
Having already taken a 10-place grid penalty for a new battery, Leclerc will fall to the back of the pack but, with team-mate Carlos Sainz at least up in third, the Monegasque is keeping the faith.
“I believe in miracles. Sometimes again, it makes our life very difficult, that’s for sure,” he said.
“With the 10-place grid penalty, it was always going to be difficult, but I see an opportunity to do something very special, and I’ll do my best to do it. And I’ll believe in it until the very last lap – everything can happen.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/leclerc-ferrari-title-chances-believe-miracles/10680356/