Summary Saturday in Abu Dhabi: Bad day for Mercedes

The very last qualifying session of the season is over. Max Verstappen will start from pole position for tomorrow's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. GPblog lists the highlights of the Saturday.

The race promises to be nerve-wracking. Red Bull Racing will start on the soft tyre, while Mercedes will start on the mediums. It is unclear which strategy is the best, but Verstappen seems to have the advantage at the start of the race. It will be important how long he can drive in the first stint. Lewis Hamilton on the other hand has to reckon with a lesser start. He will also start from the dirty side of the track.

For Valtteri Bottas, it was not a good end to his Saturday. The Finn finished only sixth and had certainly hoped for more. The slower pace probably has a good explanation. Bottas has indicated that he was forced to drive with an older engine for qualifying. Toto Wolff confirmed this over the on-board radio after the session.

There was a lot of fuss on social media last week after Sky Sports' new commercial. The channel wished their viewers a Merry Christmas with the images of the crash of Verstappen in Silverstone. The commercial has now been removed from television and the English broadcaster has offered their apologies in a statement on Twitter.

Hamilton was on his guard this weekend. The Briton was only one reprimand away from a grid penalty of ten places in the race. During FP3 he got in the way of Nikita Mazepin again, but got away with it. There was no investigation and Red Bull did not file a protest either.