Doornbos highlights Verstappen's qualifying as one of the highlights of the season

According to Robert Doornbos, the qualifying session from Abu Dhabi is one of the highlights of 2020. The former driver believes Max Verstappen had to use everything he had to gain a first pole of the season.

Verstappen used everything in his car

"One of the highlights of this season was the qualification of Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen. You can see that Max used everything he had on board to beat the Mercedes," said Doornbos in his last column.

"You couldn't make it better in terms of direction, how they got over the finish line. First Hamilton, then Bottas and finally with two hundredths Max Verstappen takes the pole position," continued Doornbos. According to the former Formula 1 driver, pole position is the key on the Yas Marina Circuit, because the race has always been won from pole in the past five years.

Why overtaking was so difficult on Sunday

"On a 5.5 kilometer circuit with 21 turns. Then you think: 'Why can't they overtake here? There are also two more DRS straights, so there has been some thought about it."

"What also helped was that Max had a perfect start. You could see him looking right and left in his mirrors. After turn one he had already made a hole for Bottas. That was also the case at the restart," Doornbos concluded.