Valtteri Bottas claimed pole position for the final race of the season at Abu Dhabi as the Mercedes driver attempts to secure second place in the Drivers' Championship for 2017.
The Finnish driver set a time of a 1:36.231, setting a new lap record for the Yas Marina Circuit more than 2.5s faster than the pole time in 2016. Teammate Lewis Hamilton was Bottas' nearest challenger, 0.172s adrift after a scruffy last lap, to make it an all silver front row.
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel lines up in third place for Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, over half a second adrift of Bottas. He will be alongside his former Red Bull team mate, Daniel Ricciardo, who starts from fourth for the Milton Keynes-based team.
Kimi Raikkonen only managed to qualify in fifth place in the second Ferrari, and splits the Red Bulls, with Max Verstappen unusually qualifying in sixth place, after struggling for pace all weekend in comparison to Ricciardo.
Nico Hulkenerg was the best of the rest for Renault after qualifying in seventh place. He will start ahead of the Force India pair of Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon who line up in eighth and ninth place respectively.
Felipe Massa rounded out the top ten in what was the final qualifying session of his career, with the Williams driver retiring, again, at the end of this season and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (again) marking the end of his time in the sport that has lasted 15 seasons.
Discussion about this post