With a spectacular pole position in Abu Dhabi, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen delivered the opening blow in his title battle with Lewis Hamilton.
After a spectacular first qualifying lap at Yas Marina, Verstappen was 0.371 seconds quicker than the Mercedes driver.
Verstappen and Hamilton are even on points heading into the race. The race is virtually a winner-take-all affair, albeit if no driver finishes, Verstappen will be crowned champion since he has one more victory.
After their first circuits in final qualifying, Hamilton was more over 0.5 seconds behind Verstappen, and although improving on his last run, he was unable to catch up.
Verstappen and Hamilton will start the race on separate tyres, the Dutchman on the soft and the Briton on the medium.
After locking his brakes and ruining one of his medium tyres in the second session, Verstappen was forced to move to the soft tyres, which determine the starting tyre.
Lando Norris of McLaren finished third, ahead of Sergio Perez of Red Bull.
Valtteri Bottas, the second Mercedes driver, finished sixth, behind Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari.