What The Teams Said – Qualifying In Abu Dhabi

Red Bull

Max Verstappen, 1st, 1:23.824

“It couldn’t have been better today; the tow worked out well as we managed to lock out the front row. We went out there and did our thing. As a team, we had an almost perfect qualifying, and we are very excited for tomorrow; the most important thing is that Checo stays ahead of Charles, so we’ll do what we can to make that happen. I do think that our car is quick; there’s a massive question mark around the other teams though and how much long-run performance they will have gained overnight. We made a few mistakes in Brazil, I guess, but we learned from that, and we are back where we should be.”

Sergio Perez, 2nd, 1:24.052

“It is a great Team result for everyone back home, and here in Abu Dhabi, we are in the best position to finish off the job and get that result tomorrow. It certainly was good teamwork with Max today, and it was important to get both cars as high up as possible for the race. My Q1 and Q2 were looking strong, and I was hoping for more, but then Q3 wasn’t ideal, especially our first run. That put us on the back foot a little, and in the end, it wasn’t good enough for P1. We have a very long race ahead of us, so we need to finish the job off tomorrow and deliver a massive result for the Team. It will be important to get off the line well and get a strong start to get away from Charles. We are certainly confident going into tomorrow that our race pace is good and we can race harder. We are a lot happier with performance than we were in Brazil. It would be a huge year for us if we are able to get second place in the Drivers’ Championship and make history for the Team. We will work hard and hopefully we can succeed.”

Christian Horner, Team Principal

“It was a great qualifying from the Team, our first front row lockout of the year and first since 2018. We are tremendously happy with the performance as it gives us an opportunity to end our most successful season in the best possible way. Max secured the 20th pole position of his career with a stellar last lap. On top of that, he gave Checo the tow in the second sector to help him secure the second grid slot – locking out the front row for the Team. It was. We couldn’t have asked for a better Saturday, but there is still a lot to do. Now we must focus on converting this into the best possible result tomorrow, ensuring 2nd place in the Championship for Checo.”

Ferrari

Charles Leclerc, 3rd, 1:24.092

“P3 is the best we could do today. It was quite a tricky qualifying, especially in terms of tyre management, as is usually the case in Abu Dhabi, with the rear tires overheating in the final sector.

“With Carlos starting right behind me, we will work together to put pressure on our competitors ahead and aim to finish the season on a high.”

Carlos Sainz, 4th, 1:24.242

“It was a solid qualifying for the team today as we made a step forward on pace and car setup. I’m not entirely happy with my last attempt in Q3 as the traffic on the out-lap compromised getting everything up to temperature and I didn’t put a great lap together.

“However, I’m happy with the car feeling and think we’re in a good position for tomorrow. There are still many points to fight for and we’ll push until the end.”

Laurent Mekies, Racing Director

“We’re reasonably pleased with how qualifying went. I think the team has made a step forward since yesterday, when we weren’t completely happy with the car’s handling. Here at the track and back in Maranello, we worked on fine tuning the set-up and on extracting a touch more performance from the car. Out on track, Charles and Carlos gave their best and improved their performance lap by lap, executing this session in a solid way. That resulted in us locking out the second row, with Charles within a whisker of Perez’s time.

“It’s a decent starting position for tomorrow’s race, but we know Red Bull and Mercedes will have a very strong pace. We can expect a close six-way fight, and tyre management will likely be a key factor again. That could present opportunities and we will try to make the most of them.”

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton, 5th, 1:24.508

“We came here expecting this to be a difficult one for us but we didn’t expect a gap of eight tenths to pole position. We were losing six tenths today on the straights to the top cars. I gave it everything, so it’s a bit of a surprising result and just being so far behind Red Bull and Ferrari. Hopefully our race pace tomorrow will be better than our qualifying pace today. There’s also some bouncing at this track, which adds to our lack of performance and issues with temperature splits on the brakes which we’ve experienced throughout the whole season. The whole team is working hard and they’re doing an incredible job to fix these issues, especially also for next year. I’m looking to tomorrow and the final race of the season!”

George Russell, 6th, 1:24.511

“We hoped for better lap times during qualifying but should be in a stronger position during the race tomorrow as our long run pace looked competitive from what we’ve seen so far. The grid position seems fair when you look at our current car performance at a circuit like Abu Dhabi but following the results in Brazil, we were probably hoping for a little bit more. So, we would have liked to be a little bit closer to the front but should be in a better place for the race. Tomorrow will be interesting, as there are lots of different strategy options. I expect Red Bull to be out of reach, but I hope we can chase Ferrari. Let’s see what tomorrow brings – we will fight as hard as we can all the way to the finish line.”

Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport

“Today didn’t go our way unfortunately. We didn’t get the job done right and went backwards in terms of our performance, while our competitors made a step forward. We opted for a higher downforce and higher drag setup, and it was just too slow on the straights during the session. We’ve also had issues with the brakes that we need to investigate. The weekend looked positive for us so far, especially during the earlier sessions but in the end, we didn’t deliver when it came down to qualifying. All in all, a disappointing day for the team. We want to be in the front, fighting for victories. Hopefully, our set-up will benefit from the earlier start time of the race tomorrow and the higher temperatures, which seemed to result in better car performance for us so far here in Abu Dhabi.”

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

“We had a solid FP3, looking like we were sitting between the Red Bulls and Ferraris on single lap pace so it’s disappointing to end up 5th and 6th. Through the weekend it has felt like we are at our best on the hot track and struggling to find the grip in the cooler evening conditions. The decisions we made with the car setup are biased towards race pace, and on a long run everything is running hotter anyway so we’re still hopeful that we can have a race where we are looking forwards not backwards, but a third row start for both cars means that we have our work cut out if we are to challenge at the front.”

McLaren

Lando Norris, 7th, 1:24.769

“A good quali. I think I got everything out of the car today, so I’m happy. I struggled a bit, not having enough confidence to push the car, but at the same time, we secured the best position we could. We’ve got a good starting place, let’s convert it into some good points tomorrow.”

Daniel Ricciardo, 10th, 1:25.045

“I’m pleased with Q3 because it hasn’t been a sure thing this year. So, from that point of view, I’m happy to just be in it the whole session and be able to be in the hunt. It was a P10, but we were competitive enough to give us a little bit of hope. I think the middle sector, I just didn’t quite nail so there was maybe a tenth or so on the table there which maybe could have put me in the fight with Vettel and perhaps Ocon. Nonetheless, looking forward to tomorrow. I will try to attack from the start, make up a few positions and put myself back in the fight with the top ten.”

James Key, Executive Director, Technical

“It was a case of looking for marginal gains in FP3, after some good work on set-up and balance during Friday, together with further steps overnight, we took an approach of fine tuning and working out best approach to qualifying. It was good to get both cars through to Q3, the margins were tight in all three sessions but both drivers had the pace to make the top 10. The long run pace looked reasonable yesterday, so we look forward to making good use of that tomorrow in the final race of the season. Daniel has a three-place grid penalty but he’ll be pushing hard to fight back into the points. It will be an interesting race with the predicted strategy options available so it’s all to play for.”

Alpine

Esteban Ocon, 8th, 1:24.830

“I’m very pleased with today’s Qualifying so a big well done to the team for one of our best sessions of the season. Every run felt like we made a step as we tried to maximise the performance of the car today. Our main competitors are quick this weekend, perhaps quicker than we originally thought, so we will need to be focused tomorrow to have a good race and bring back some points. There’s one more to go, so let’s make it the best one yet.”

Fernando Alonso, 11th, 1:25.096

“We didn’t quite have the pace in Qualifying today, so in the end, I think we can be quite happy to be starting tenth for the race. It was close in Q1 and less than a tenth separated a number of cars in Q2. We know it will be difficult to overtake tomorrow, but we’ll try our best to have some fun and gain some places inside the top ten. It’s the last time I will jump in the car with Alpine, so I will be looking to make the most of the race tomorrow and hopefully end on a high with the team.”

Alan Permane, Sporting Director

“We will start tomorrow’s final race of the year with Esteban in eighth and Fernando in tenth and we’re generally quite pleased with those starting spots. Fernando didn’t quite extract the most from the car today – missing a tenth or two throughout – and his focus is already on tomorrow’s race where we know we are strong. This circuit has always been quite tricky for Qualifying with cooling track temperatures and traffic as cars queue in the final sector, which brings difficulties in keeping the tyres in a good window. Esteban and his team did a great job in managing those elements today to qualify in eighth place and he was close to sneaking seventh by just half a tenth of a second. We’re looking forward to tomorrow’s race where the aim is to utilise our strong race pace and have both cars well inside the points to end the season on a high note.”

Aston Martin