After sitting out FP1, having limited running in FP2 and struggling in FP3 there were doubts that Verstappen would be able to take pole today, however to the surprise of, well, pretty much no one Verstappen made it look easy and took a 12th and final pole position of 2023. But there were stills some surprises that came out of qualifying.

Q1

Q1 saw the Alpha Romeo pair of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu fail to make to the second part of qualifying, a disappointing result for the team in what is there last race as Alpha Romeo before they change to Sauber next year. Joining them was the Haas of Kevin Magnessun and Logan Sargeant who got a lap time deleted for track limits. But the biggest shock was Carlos Sainz who is the only driver to win a race this year apart from the two Redbulls. But it would seem that his bad luck from last time out in Vegas carried on into this weekend meaning that he’ll start 16th tomorrow and will have a lot of work to do.

Q2

Q2 saw an impressive lap from Nico Hulkenberg as he managed to get his Haas into Q3 with yet another impressive Qualifying performance from him this year. While Hulkenberg managed to make it into Q3, Ocon, Stroll, Albon and Ricciardo failed to make in into the top 10 as did Lewis Hamilton who was knocked out by Oscar Piastry in a disappointing result for the Mercedes driver as his team chase 2nd place in the teams standings.

Q3

The final part of qualifying saw Verstappen set a lap time of 1m 23.445s for the other drivers to beat. For a moment it looked like Lando Norris was going to take pole off Verstappen as he lit up the times in the closing stages of qualifying but he lost the rear end through turns 13-14 forcing him to back off to correct the mistake.

This allowed Verstappen to take pole for a fourth year in a row at the Yas marina circuit. Alongside him will be Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who put in a brilliant lap to qualify second which should ease the pain of his teammates poor qualifying performance. With Leclerc second, Russell 4th and Hamilton 11th the fight for second place in the teams standings is still all to play for tomorrow. In order to secure second off Mercedes Ferrari will have to out-score Mercedes by 4 points tomorrow.

Full Qualifying Results:

1	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT	1:24.160	1:23.740	1:23.445	15
2	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	1:24.459	1:23.969	1:23.584	18
3	81	Oscar Piastri	MCLAREN MERCEDES	1:24.487	1:24.278	1:23.782	17
4	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	1:24.337	1:24.013	1:23.788	18
5	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	1:24.368	1:23.920	1:23.816	16
6	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT	1:24.286	1:24.207	1:23.968	18
7	14	Fernando Alonso	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	1:24.501	1:24.131	1:24.084	18
8	27	Nico Hulkenberg	HAAS FERRARI	1:24.425	1:24.213	1:24.108	18
9	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT	1:24.209	1:24.116	1:24.171	17
10	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPINE RENAULT	1:24.600	1:24.078	1:24.548	18
11	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	1:24.437	1:24.359		12
12	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	1:24.565	1:24.391		12
13	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	1:24.405	1:24.422		12
14	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:24.298	1:24.439		12
15	3	Daniel Ricciardo	ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT	1:24.461	1:24.442		12
16	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	1:24.738			6
17	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	1:24.764			6
18	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	1:24.788			6
19	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	1:25.159			6
NC	2	Logan Sargeant	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	DNQ			6

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