Abu Dhabi F1 2017 GP: Bottas claims the last pole of the year

The last qualifying session of the 2017 Formula 1 season sees a new pole for the Mercedes team. Of the 20 grands prix so far, one of the two drivers from the German outfit has taken pole in fifteen of them: eleven times for Lewis Hamilton and four for Valtteri Bottas, counting the one he achieved this Saturday in Abu Dhabi.

That is Bottas’s fourth pole of the year, something that was to be expected after seeing how well he and his teammate Hamilton had gone in FP3, with both almost half a second quicker than the rest. The two Mercedes drivers take the front two spots on the grid and are the favourites to win the final race of the season.

Behind the Mercedes silver arrows will start Sebastian Vettel, third but unable to keep pace with the Mercedes cars at Yas Marina. Fourth went to Daniel Ricciardo, slotting in between the two Ferrari cars and relegating Kimi Räikkönen to fifth on the grid. As expected, Max Verstappen was sixth, followed by Nico Hülkenberg in seventh, ahead of the two Force India drivers.

Tenth place went to Brazilian Felipe Massa, who snuck into Q3 at the last moment, knocking out Fernando Alonso, whom we had expected to be among the top ten given how well the McLaren cars had gone in FP3. Carlos Sainz also could not keep up with the best, for the first time since joining Renault, and will start from twelfth place, just behind his compatriot.

The full classification from this qualifying session in Abu Dhabi is as follows:

A reminder of the start time for the final race of this season: 14:00. Although it lacks excitement, it will be the last race of the 2017 season and not one to miss.