Hamilton on POLE at Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in Mercedes front row

Lewis Hamilton has taken pole position in the final Grand Prix of 2018, beating team mate Bottas in to second. Vettel starts third.

All the gongs are awarded for the 2018 F Grand Prix Season, and it’s another whitewash for Mercedes as they grab driver and constructor titles.

So the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – the last of the season – is about going out on a high, rather than any real benefit for team or driver. But that doesn’t seem to have demotivated Lewis Hamilton one bit.

Hamilton has taken pole position – his 11th of the year – in Abu Dhabi, with team mate Bottas grabbing second for a Mercedes front row lockout.

The best Sebastian Vettel – at one point this year thought likely to break the Mercedes stranglehold on F1 – was third, with Raikkonen making row two Ferrari territory for the race start, and the Red Bulls of Ricciardo and Verstappen closing out row three. The rest of the top ten was rounded out by Grosjean, Leclerc, Ocon and Hulkenberg.

McLaren had a pretty miserable qualifying, although Alonso’s specially painted car and helmet – to celebrate his last race in F1 – spurred him on to, for McLaren, a great result of 15th on the grid, completing a season-long whitewash of Vandoorne in the process. The Williams cars of Stroll and Sirotkin start at the back of the grid.