Max Verstappen tops final practice in Abu Dhabi; Lewis Hamilton sixth

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Verstappen tops final practice in Abu Dhabi; Hamilton sixth

Verstappen ends the final practice session of 2020 top of the timesheets

Sam Hall

Saturday 12 December 2020 12:12 Updated: 12:23

Max Verstappen topped final practice for the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix ahead of Red Bull team-mate Alex Albon, while seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton was down in sixth.

Verstappen set the fastest time of the weekend so far at the Yas Marina Circuit with a lap of one minute 36.251 seconds, finishing half-a-second clear of Albon.

Neither Red Bull driver was entirely happy with their set up across the Saturday morning session with Verstappen complaining about a brake problem and Albon stating on team radio he is suffering from understeer "everywhere".

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Hamilton, returning after missing the Sakhir GP after testing positive for Covid-19, trailed Verstappen by 0.761s, although his effort was half-a-tenth faster than ninth-placed Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas.

For the first 20 minutes of the hour-long session, the track remained empty. Taking place in the warmer daytime conditions they were unrepresentative of those which will be seen in qualifying or the race.

When drivers did finally take to the track, Verstappen and Hamilton initially traded blows at the top of the times.

Only for Renault duo Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon, Lando Norris for McLaren and then Albon splitting the pair by the end of the session.

An interesting takeaway for qualifying will be the fact tyres appeared to be releasing the most pace on a second flying lap, with a slow lap separating the two efforts.

With the quickfire nature of F1 qualifying sessions, completing two runs in this fashion will be extremely tight given the length of the circuit

Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz finished seventh and eighth ahead of Bottas, with Sergio Perez, who will start at the back of the field after being hit with engine penalties, 10th.

Daniil Kvyat was 1.015s off the pace in 11th ahead of Charles Leclerc, Pierre Gasly and Sebastian Vettel, with George Russell, returning to Williams after his outing with Mercedes last weekend, 15th.

Should the result of final practice repeat itself in qualifying, Antonio Giovinazzi, Kimi Raikkonen, Kevin Magnussen, Nicholas Latifi and Pietro Fittipaldi would all drop out of the running in Q1.