Norris leads all-McLaren front row, Hulkenberg beats Verstappen to fourth · RaceFans

Lando Norris heads a front row lock-out for McLaren in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with Carlos Sainz Jnr starting third behind Oscar Piastri.

McLaren will head into the constructors’ championship deciding race with a considerable advantage over rivals Ferrari, with Sainz third and Charles Leclerc starting 19th on the grid following his ten place grid penalty after he was eliminated from Q2 in 14th.

Nico Hulkenberg is set to start fourth but is under investigation for overtaking in the pit exit road against the race director’s instructions. Max Verstappen will start fifth, with Lewis Hamilton set to start his final race for Mercedes 16th after he was eliminated from Q1 in 18th.

Q1

The final qualifying session of the season got underway very lazily with no drivers in a rush to take to the track. Fernando Alonso scrubbed a set of hard tyres, while Aston Martin team mate Lance Stroll posted the first time of the evening.

Sergio Perez was the next to post a lap time, which was immediately deleted for exceeding track limits at the exit of the first corner. Franco Colapinto also lost his first timed lap for the same infraction at the first corner.

Carlos Sainz Jnr was the fastest of the initial runners with a 1’23.487, with Max Verstappen just three hundredths of a second slower and Kevin Magnussen carrying on Haas’ promising pace from practice in third ahead of the two McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. Just six tenths of a second covered first to 16th, the cut off point for Q2, as cars returned to the pit lane to prepare for their final runs.

Perez headed out for his final run but the stewards announced that his original deleted lap would be reinstated after looking closer at the replays. Red Bull did not inform him until he had completed his second push lap, which was not an improvement, leaving him unhappy that he had unnecessarily used another set of tyres.

Perez’s first time was good enough to get through, but Lewis Hamilton had dropped into the danger zone and needed to improve to reach Q2. However, he found Magnussen’s Haas to the inside at turn 14 as he completed his final push lap. Magnussen hit the apex bollard which was knocked under Hamilton’s car. Hamilton went on to miss the cut by under a tenth of a second in 18th in his final qualifying session for Mercedes.

Less than half a second covered the top 15, with Alexander Albon knocked out in 16th along with Zhou Guanyu in his final qualifying session for Sauber. Hamilton…