Verstappen Secures 8th Pole of the Year in Abu Dhabi as Championship Fight Heats Up

The battle for the Drivers Championship is coming to a head as Max Verstappen looks to take his fifth title from pole, with Lando Norris in P2 and Oscar Piastri in P3 right behind him. 

With the way things stand, grand prix Sunday is looking to be a tight battle to the finish line of both the race and the season. If the three contenders finish in this order tomorrow, Verstappen will take his fifth win in Abu Dhabi while Norris will take the Championship. 

Norris, notably, struggled in the first round of the qualifying session, trailing his teammate Piastri by half a second towards the end of Q1. His form picked up throughout the next two rounds, closing the gap, but he could not catch Verstappen in the end. The two McLarens looked to be on par with each other, with just 0.029 separating them in the end.

Meanwhile, Verstappen topped the timing tower in each of the three qualifying rounds, finding massive speed in Q3 to secure pole with a lightning fast 1:22.207. 

On his incredible final lap, Verstappen said, “I stayed on scrub tires, and I think those laps already felt quite decent. And because any Q3 around here, you know, track time is coming down, you know that you can push a bit more, and that's exactly what we did. We found a bit more lap time and of course, incredibly happy to be in first.”

This is his first pole position since the United States Grand Prix, and with that he holds the most poles of the season at eight. Norris is right behind him with seven, while Piastri has six. 

But this is just the setup for the final showdown tomorrow, which is when the numbers that actually matter will come in. Until then, all we can do is wait and see.

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Cover photo via Abed Ismail on Pexels. 

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