McLaren driver Lando Norris took pole position for the Formula 1 2024 season finale in Abu Dhabi, as Lewis Hamilton suffered a surreal Q1 exit in his final qualifying with Mercedes and Charles Leclerc went out in Q2.
Amid massive track ramp-up late in the first segment, Hamilton was on course to progress but had a track bollard deflected into his path by the Haas of Kevin Magnussen - who went off track on the inside of Turn 14 in a desperate effort to avoid impeding rivals.
The bollard got itself lodged under Hamilton's car, ruining the final two corners of his lap. He eventually thought it had been his mistake before the realisation came of what had happened.
For Leclerc, who already knew he was due for a 10-place penalty, the intended damage mitigation had begun with him topping Q1 - and he put in a lap good enough to head Q2, too.
But that lap was then chalked off for a Turn 1 track limits infringement, and first turned into 14th - which means the Ferrari driver will start the back.
The pole battle
Champion Max Verstappen was the only driver to take two fresh sets of softs into Q3 but undid the benefit of that by having what looked like a slide of at least 30 degrees on the outside kerb at the final corner at the end of his first Q3 push.
Still, even with that error the lap was good enough to take put him top against his rivals' used-tyre efforts - but by the time he came out of the final corner again on his final lap he was only fifth, and he did not improve, staying in that position.
He was, thus, well-beaten by the two McLarens, with Norris punching in a 1m22.595s pole time and team-mate Oscar Piastri completing an all-McLaren front row while being two tenths down.
Ferrari's only Q3 representative Carlos Sainz came up just short of nicking second from Piastri, while Nico Hulkenberg was a spectacular fourth for Haas initially before losing it to a three-place penalty for overtaking other cars in the pit exit tunnel.
Haas needs a six-point swing against Alpine this weekend and looks to have the car to deliver it on pace, but Hulkenberg's penalty moved Pierre Gasly's Alpine up to fifth behind Verstappen.
George Russell avoided a grid penalty by just getting out of the way of Liam Lawson in Q1, but could ultimately only salvage seventh - which becomes sixth with Hulkenberg's penalty.
The Haas now shares row four with Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso.
Valtteri Bottas, in what could be his final F1 qualifying, recorded only the second Q3 appearance for this year's disappointing Sauber C44 - which was last in Q3 in April.
Second Red Bull driver Sergio Perez completed the Q3 order 0.669s off the pace, having been spared a Q2 elimination by Leclerc's laptime deletion.
Perez's deleted lap anger
A deleted laptime U-turn was the catalyst for a heated exchange between Perez and his Red Bull team, which is expected to replace the Mexican for 2025.
Perez had set a very competitive first lap in Q1 but one that was swiftly deleted for track limits due to a perceived Turn 1 breach.
It triggered the following conversation between Perez and race engineer Hugh Bird.
Perez: Is it [the infringement] clear, mate?
Bird: We believe it's clear.
Perez: Have a look because... I don't think so.
Perez was eventually proven correct as the evidence of his track limits breach was reviewed and, with it coming down to milimetres, ultimately overturned. The same would happen to Piastri in Q3.
But as he'd already been sent out on a second set of softs in Q1 it enraged Perez. "I told you man, why the f**k don't you check? We just wasted a set!" he yelled on team radio, before dismissing the race engineer's counter-argument that almost everyone else ran a second set, too as "irrelevant".
The RBs of Yuki Tsunoda and Lawson placed 11th and 12th in Q2, half a tenth apart, followed by Aston's Lance Stroll - who was half a second off team-mate Alonso in that session.
But that was still less than the gap between Haas drivers Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, the latter left to rue a final Q2 lap that just didn't come together at all and left him eight tenths off Hulkenberg - which team boss Ayao Komatsu attributed to Magnussen's Haas being damaged after hitting the bollard.
Williams drivers Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto - both facing grid penalties - didn't improve late in Q1 so were eliminated in 16th and 19th.
Sauber's Zhou Guanyu placed between Albon and Hamilton, while Colapinto was followed by Alpine's debutant Jack Doohan, replacing Esteban Ocon this weekend.
Doohan was just one tenth off Pierre Gasly after his first Q1 run, but only managed a very marginal improvement in the end to leave him last in the timesheets - albeit he will move up due to the grid penalties to the Williams duo and Leclerc.
