Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: Valtteri Bottas beats Lewis Hamilton to last pole position of the season

World champion Hamilton, who had appeared in ominous form for much of the weekend, was on course to steal pole in the closing moments only for a scruffy end to his last lap

Valtteri Bottas will start the final race of the season from pole position (Getty)

“I just didn’t do a good enough job this evening,” Lewis Hamilton said cheerfully as he walked out of the media conference room on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina this evening, looking as if he’d just got up rather than wrestled an F1 car round a tight track in 25 degrees C temperatures under intense pressure for the best part of an hour.

In his terms, being 0.172s slower than his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas counted as a poor job, as they battled over the final pole position in a tough season. But that’s the sort of standard you need to apply to win four world championships and are already working on a fifth. But if he was overly upset by that massive deficit, he was concealing it well. And the truth is that he was stoked for a team-mate he clearly likes and respects immensely.

A year ago his toxic, intra-personal scrap with long-time friend/foe Nico Rosberg was about to come to an end, though nobody at this stage realised that the German, now a world champion like his illustrious father Keke, was headed for the door and a quieter life. When that news broke days after Hamilton headed him home in the race, it was Bottas who was the beneficiary as he slid into the vacated Mercedes and left the door open for the retiring Felipe Massa… well, not to retire, after all.

The relationship between Hamilton and Bottas, insiders at Mercedes will tell you all too readily, has been a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t that either Hamilton or Rosberg were unpleasant; just that the intensity of their battle left no room for niceties. It was just too close, and had been going on too long, for that.

This year, Bottas has done well at times, winning in Russia and Austria, yet clearly struggling at others. He’s discovered at the closest quarters just how hard Hamilton works to achieve what he does, and he has admitted as much of late. Yet since Mexico he’s turned a corner again, and his honourable chase there of Max Verstappen at least made up for Mercedes; disappointment after Vettel hit Hamilton on the opening lap and split his right rear tyre.

In Brazil last time out, he took pole but got beaten away by Vettel, who went on to win.

“I didn’t like that happening, so I have a clear goal here,” the likable, no-nonsense Finn said. And while Hamilton isn’t like to hand out any early Christmas gifts here in the race, he also knows he’ll have to push as hard as ever if he wants win number 10 in his great season.

The first qualifying session saw them trading fastest time, with Bottas lapping in 1m 37.356s, the fastest time thus far this weekend, to Hamilton’s 1m 37.391s.


 Bottas outlasted his Mercedes teammate 
 (Getty)

Hamilton took the advantage back in the second with another new weekend fastest time of 1m 36.742s, with Bottas riding shotgun on 1m 36.822s.

Bottas went back in front after the first runs in the final session, with 1m 36.231s to 1m 36.403s, and when neither improved on their second tries, it was job done, and pole number four for the Finn.

“Things were better for me in the final practice and also quallie,” he said happily, looking like a man who’d proved something to himself about his own resilience, “and I managed to find a bit here and a bit there and to keep it all under control. The first lap was very good, and remained enough for pole, so I’m very happy.”


 Bottas will start from pole in Sunday's race 
 (Getty)

“In general that was a session in which I had to push a lot,” Hamilton said. “In final practice I was more comfortable in the car, and in the quallie session that was not the case. It was on a knife edge, so it was hard work holding on to Valtteri. What a lap he did! Just an incredible lap, so congratulations to him. It’s the last quallie of a great year and I gave it everything, but Valtteri did a fantastic job so I’m really happy for him.”

Their sheer pace left Brazilian GP winner Sebastian Vettel a little non-plussed, despite a second-run improvement to 1m 36.777s.

“It was a good session,” he said, “but a bit of change to be that far back. But tomorrow we’ll be strong. Valtteri’s was a mega lap, so congratulations. It should be a great race. Overtaking is not easy here, but let’s see what’s possible.”

Red Bull’s Daniel Riccardo pulled out a heroic final lap to jump ahead of Vettel’s team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, but perhaps the happiest man was Massa. He’s the first to admit how much it hurt his psyche on his return to cockpit duty in 2010 after the accident in Hungary in 2009 that might have killed him, only to be told while heading for a win in Germany a year to the day later, “Felipe, Fernando is faster than you.” Meaning, the boss says move over, buddy.


 Hamilton took second place with Sebastian Vettel third 
 (Getty)

There’s not a lot of sentiment in this sport, especially when your cars are painted red, so this evening Massa was delighted to get through to the final session for the last time at Alonso’s expense, easing the McLaren driver out with a lap of 1m 38.565s to 1m 38.636s.

A lot of things will come to an end with this race. McLaren’s fractious relationship with Honda; possibly the F1 careers of Pascal Wehrlein and Marcus Ericsson; Toro Rosso’s harmonious engine supply with Renault; the era of F1 cars which didn’t need zimmer frame halos over their cockpits. But the biggest will be Massa’s occupancy of one of them. Perhaps of all the 20 drivers on the grid, he is the most charismatic and the one with the least enemies. All the man who so nearly beat Hamilton to the win here in 2014 will be asking is for reliability and a good run, and to check out with dignity. A lot of hearts will be riding with him.