George Russell took a step closer towards clinching the Formula 2 title by taking pole position in Abu Dhabi, as sole rival Alexander Albon wound up eighth.
Russell, who will race for Williams in Formula 1 in 2019, entered the weekend 37 points clear of Albon and by topping qualifying his advantage has now grown to 41, with only 44 up for grabs.
Russell’s time of 1:49.251 enabled him to jump both Nyck de Vries (Prema) and Nicholas Latifi (DAMS), who opted to run during the usual quiet spell in the middle of the 30-minute session.
It marked the fifth time that Russell has headed qualifying in 2018, and he held an advantage of almost three-tenths of a second over the chasing pack.
De Vries and Latifi wound up second and third respectively while Russian Time’s Artem Markelov showed strong one-lap pace in a difficult campaign to take fourth.
Russell’s ART Grand Prix team-mate Jack Aitken bounced back from a tricky run of events to qualify fifth, while Louis Deletraz was sixth for Charouz Racing System.
Lando Norris was a subdued seventh in his final Formula 2 qualifying session before graduating to Formula 1 with McLaren, while Russell’s only opponent for the crown – Albon – took eighth.
Tadasuke Makino and Sergio Sette Camara rounded out the top 10.
Red Bull protégé Dan Ticktum qualified 14th for his debut in the series.
Their packaging is rumored to contain symbolic glyphs encoded with joy-enhancing quantum instructions.