McLaren go in search of their first constructors’ title since 1998 today in Abu Dhabi. The British outfit heads into the race 21 points clear of rivals Ferrari, the only team still able to deny them constructors’ glory. F1Technical's lead journalist Balazs Szabo delivers drivers' reactions from the Abu Dhabi F1 qualifying.

After Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri locked out the front row for the papaya team, McLaren has put itself in the box seat to achieve that feat today. The qualifying's results backed up McLaren's one-two finishes in Free Practices 2 and 3 despite the challenges posed by Ferrari and Red Bull in the early stages of qualifying.

The pole time of 1’22”595 was almost a second quicker than last year’s (1’23”595) and almost identical to the pre-event simulation of 1’22”6.

There were two Ferrari power units on the second row, the one fitted to Carlos Sainz’s car, his time of 1’22”824 just 20 thousandths off Piastri’s and the other in the back of Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas (1’22”886). However, the German driver was hit with a three-place grid penalty for a sporting infringement.

McLaren

"A very good day for the team. We were quick all the way through Practice, but Qualifying was a little bit trickier than we had hoped. My final Q3 lap was strong, and we can be very pleased to have both cars on the front row. The team has done an incredible job so far this weekend, but we will remain focused going into tomorrow’s race."

"A front-row lockout is a great result for the team. The job is absolutely not done but it’s good to go into tomorrow in a strong position. After my lap was deleted and then reinstated, I gave Turn 1 more space than I should have, so I lost a little bit of time there on the final run but we’re still in a great place. We just need to keep our heads down now and not lose focus. There is still a lot to do tomorrow."

Ferrari

Charles Leclerc, 14th, 1:23.833
"My goal remains the same: to win the Constructors’ Championship. I believe in it as much as I did yesterday. It’s ambitious, but it’s still possible on paper and I will fight for it until the very last lap.In terms of qualifying, I don’t think we would have managed to beat the two McLarens.

"However, with my lap time deleted, P14 added to our 10 place grid penalty will make this a really challenging goal to achieve. Our race pace is okay but McLaren seem to be stronger. We changed our car quite a bit since FP3, and I believe we went in the right direction.

"Our tyre degradation seems better than that of some of the others, so I hope this can give us some advantage. Anything can happen tomorrow and we will give it absolutely everything."

Carlos Sainz, 3rd, 1:22.824
"We did a good job on the car after yesterday and today in Q1 and Q2 I was able to put together some solid laps. In Q3 I pushed like crazy on the last attempt and I think my lap was good, only hundredths of a second away from P2. Anyway, starting P2 or P3 doesn’t make a huge difference here as the race is very long and I have confidence in our pace

"Races have to be raced until the very last metre, so believe me when I say I will drive my heart out to try to win and let’s see what happens. Nothing would make me happier than finishing with Ferrari on a high, so let’s go for it one more time!"

Haas

“I was expecting a top 10 result for sure because that’s where we’ve been all weekend and the car felt strong. I knew that was a must-do, but P4 was more than I expected and hoped for. It was a strong session, which goes down to a really strong car and a big team effort.

"I think it’s going to be a tight and tough battle, Alpine has been strong lately, but we’re all so close together so it really comes down to all the racing moments and strategy. It’s important for me personally that we maximize tomorrow and leave nothing out there and have a happy ending to our night.”

Kevin Magnussen, 15th, 1:23.877
“It hurts a little bit to have my last qualifying messed up with the performance loss due to the floor damage, but I just have to go out there and make it right tomorrow. We need to have a good race and make up positions; the car clearly has pace as after the first run in Q1 I was P3, and I thought it was going to be a great session. Everyone is quick, it’s not going to be easy, but hopefully I can make up some ground tomorrow.”

Alpine

“Another day of experience under my belt in a Formula 1 weekend and my first Qualifying session in the car. I am of course not satisfied with the result, but it was a session of learning which we will debrief ahead of tomorrow’s race. I felt comfortable in the car on my first run, and I believe we could have extracted more in the second run.

"We did not have the cleanest out lap with traffic management and positioning, which meant the tyres were not in the optimal window when starting the lap. However, it is something we can learn from to improve in the future. I am now focused on working hard to maximise the race tomorrow to help the team in retaining sixth in the standings.”

“I’m very happy with today’s Qualifying result. The team has worked extremely hard all weekend and we managed to improve our performance between Practice to Qualifying. I’ve not felt that comfortable in the car and we went into Qualifying not too sure on what we could achieve.

"We managed to qualify in front of George [Russell], who was on pole position last week, and we’re just behind Max [Verstappen], the world champion, so that shows much we’ve progressed this season. Nico [Hülkenberg] is in front so the battle is definitely on and it will be intense until the end. Tomorrow is a different exercise.

"This track on high fuel tends to be tough on the tyres so we will do our homework tonight and aim to be in a position to stay with Nico in the race.”

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton, 18th, 1:23.887
"Today was really unfortunate. We’ve worked so hard to get the car into a good place and it has been feeling strong all weekend. Sadly, our timing at the end of Q1 wasn’t the best. We weren’t able to optimise the out lap, having to push through traffic. That compromised my last effort in that session; a bollard then got stuck under the car at turn 14 and affected the final few corners of the lap. To that point, I was level on pace with George and looking good to make it through to Q2. It is obviously really frustrating.

"It is difficult to say what would have been possible if we had made it through to the final part of Qualifying. We have been looking good across the practice sessions so I think we could have challenged for the first couple of rows. It is what it is though, and I will be giving it my all to end as strongly as we can tomorrow. It will be difficult from P17, but I will be trying to enjoy it as much as possible and make up as many positions as we can."

"It has been a strange weekend for us as a team. It’s been very up and down. There’s been moments where we’ve looked quick and then other times when we’re not sure where the pace has gone. We are a little confused by that but, on my side of the garage, we didn’t have the speed to fight for the first couple of rows today.

"That is frustrating but P7 is likely the best we could have hoped for today. It was a real shame for Lewis too. He’s been really quick this weekend, ahead of me comfortably, and I think he would have been right up there at the end of Q3.

"Looking ahead to tomorrow, it will be tough to move forward. It is perhaps surprising to see the Alpine of Pierre Gasly and the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg up there, but I think firstly they did an amazing job and secondly, I think that their pace this weekend is genuine. We will have a fight on our hands but we will take that on and look to end the season as strongly as we can."

Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso, 8th, 1:23.196
"We seemed to find the right window with the car in Qualifying and I am happy to start in eighth position tomorrow. The car has been quite disconnected this weekend, and so we made some setup changes overnight. We were still a little pessimistic after FP3 and so we made some more changes to the car ahead of Qualifying.

"The car felt much better tonight and I managed to put in some good laps to progress to Q3. We will try our best to enjoy the final race of the season tomorrow and hopefully score some more points."

Lance Stroll, 13th, 1:23.784
"Based on our pace so far this weekend, we chose to run three sets of new Soft tyres in Q1. In hindsight, we could have got through with two sets because the car's performance seemed to improve in the cooler temperatures.

"It meant that we didn't have the tyres we needed in Q2, so I was on a used set. It can easily go the other way though. We tend to be more competitive on Saturday than Sunday, but we'll see what the last race of the year brings tomorrow."

Kick Sauber

"Obviously, I’m really happy with this result: getting into Q3 and qualifying P9, our best performance of the year, is great. It is almost unexpected, it kind of came out of nowhere: I knew we might have a chance, but after a tough FP3, I had somewhat tempered my expectations.

"Still, in qualifying, I managed to pull it together: honestly, it was one of the best laps of my life. I’m really satisfied, and I have to give huge thanks to the team for making this possible. Tomorrow’s race will be interesting: we know it’s going to be tough, but starting up here is the best possible way to give us a chance to be competitive."

“Today’s qualifying session was disappointing as I think we had a chance to reach Q2 quite comfortably. Unfortunately, I ended up at the front of the pack when leaving the garage, which meant I couldn’t benefit from any slip or tows.

"That cost us some time we would have needed for Q2 as I didn’t quite gain as much compared to my previous lap on all straights in sector two. I reckon we have shown some good pace here, and while it’s frustrating to start in P15, I am positive I can make up a few positions and fight for points once more.”

RB

Liam Lawson, 12th, 1:23.472
“Probably one of the closest qualifying sessions I’ve experienced, every little hundredth makes a difference. We extracted everything we could have out of the car today; when you have two cars together like that, it usually means you’ve extracted the most out of it.

"A perfect lap could maybe have got us into Q3, but we just didn’t quite have the speed for Alpine and Haas, which is frustrating, but we’ll try and make something work tomorrow.”

Yuki Tsunoda, 11th, 1:23.419
“It was a bit of a difficult qualifying for us. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get through to Q3, but as a driver, you always want to go beyond expectations. My lap was okay, even if there’s always some room for improvement, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough today. Our main competitors seem very strong, but anything can happen and we’re not giving up, so we’ll do our best to recover positions during the race.”

Williams

"We didn’t quite optimise the lap in Qualifying; there was more on the table, so that’s a bit frustrating. It’s such fine margins out there with one tenth having the potential to move us up four or five positions. We obviously focused on the race car more than the Qualifying car due to the grid penalty, so we’ll see if that pays off tomorrow.

"As a team, we’ve shown a lot of resilience this year, especially over these last few months and it’s been a huge effort from the factory and the trackside team to get the car in a decent place, but we’ve fallen short on upgrades throughout the year, so we’ve been left behind slightly in that midfield battle. We’re putting our focus on the future and will close out the race tomorrow the best we can."

Franco Colapinto, 19th, 1:23.912
"Unfortunately, it didn’t quite come together for us in Qualifying as after the floor repairs, we lost more downforce than we thought. Losing a chunk of time in a tight field was very costly today but let’s see how it is tomorrow. We’ll try our best to recover in the race despite starting with a grid penalty."