Take a Bow Hamilton says Twitter as he storms to Pole in Abu Dhabi

A record breaking 21 races calendar and this has been a twisty and twirly season. However it’ll all end tomorrow when the 22 cars line up on the grid for the last time. The order was decided today and it was a HAMILTON show all the way.

The Brit came to the desert 12 points down on his team-mate and in an awkward position by his own admission. So how do you approach a race knowing all your teammate needs to do is finish on the podium. You go all guns blazing and that’s what Hamilton is doing and the first step towards that was claiming that pole.

And he took the pole by a whopping three tenths of a second and Twitter payed homage to the legend.

Rosberg may have had no answer to Hamilton today but such is his advantage going into the final race that all he needs to do is finish on the podium and ex-racer Heikki Kovalainen was quick to point that out.

https://twitter.com/Gigi_Clancy/status/802518863132917760

Going into Q2 Red Bull raised some eyebrows by going on Super Softs to open up their Strategy for tomorrow. Verstappen had looked to be the quicker of the duo but it was Ricciardo who delivered when it mattered and as a matter of fact he did so by going faster than the Ferraris.

Despite the Promise they showed, Ferrari could only line up P4 and P5 and Kimi Raikkonen was the Ferrari leading the charge, unfazed by his contemporaries retiring at the end of this year.

Verstappen looked promising all the weekend only to throw it away on his final lap and it would be Rosberg breathing a sigh as he’ll have one Red Bull less to worry about tomorrow and who knows this could just turn out to be the key moment for tomorrow.

Behind them the Force India pair came in P7 and P8 further augmenting their claim for the best of the rest tag. And this was the last time one the grid’s most closely matched pair went into the qualifying.

Behind the pair the likely procession went on:

But it was contrasting fortunes for the retiring Massa and Button. While Massa dislodged his team mate and went into Q3, Button got knocked out in Q2 as against Alonso who lines up in 9th tomorrow.

And way back on the Grid it was Pascal Wherlien who grabbed some headlines after rocketing his Manor to P16 and Q2 for 5th time this season.

While tomorrow’s race has become more interesting with Hamilton on pole and Rosberg lining up 2nd and Ricciardo in P3 on a different strategy.

But tomorrow is still tomorrow and today’s no doubt Hamilton’s day and today’s pole brings the number up to 61 just 4 shy of his idol Ayrton Senna.

And the Brit looked calm in the post qualifying interview.

And Rosberg on the other hand decided to stick to his usual reply of “One race at a time” and after getting beaten to pole all he needs to do tomorrow is not get beaten to the Podium.

And while the F1 race tomorrow will be a nail biter for everyone and the championship hangs on it, the feeder series GP2 will have an equally intense race tomorrow as today’s feature race win for Gasly and only a P5 from title rival Giovinazzi means the GP2 champion will only be crowed after tomorrow’s sprint race.