Rosberg beats Hamilton to Abu Dhabi pole

Mercedes AMG Petronas

Nico Rosberg beat Lewis Hamilton during qualifying to claim pole position for the final round of the year in Abu Dhabi.

Rosberg set a time of 1:40.480 to edge out Hamilton by almost four-tenths of a second, while Valtteri Bottas claimed third.

Rosberg held the advantage after the first runs as Hamilton went wide at the penultimate corner and locked up into the final turn.

Both drivers improved on their final runs but Hamilton was not able to find enough time to claw back his initial deficit to Rosberg, allowing the German to take his 11th pole position of the season.

Bottas briefly threatened Hamilton’s second place but had to settle for third, ahead of Williams team-mate Felipe Massa.

Daniel Ricciardo beat Sebastian Vettel to fifth place in their last race as Red Bull team-mates, while Daniil Kvyat was an impressive seventh for Toro Rosso.

Jenson Button claimed eighth, ahead of Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard had to abandon his final lap in Q3 after he went wide at Turn 11.

Kevin Magnussen was quick in Q1 but failed to set a quick lap in Q2 and will line up in 11^th place for McLaren, ahead of Toro Rosso’s Jean-Éric Vergne.

Force India duo Sergio Pérez and Nico Hülkenberg will make up the seventh row of the grid, with Adrian Sutil in 15^th place for his last race with Sauber.

Romain Grosjean narrowly missed out on a place in Q2 as he set the 16^th quickest time. The Frenchman, however, has a 20 place penalty so will drop to the back of the grid. As he can only serve four of those places, he will have to take a drive through penalty during the early stages of the race.

Esteban Gutiérrez was 17^th quickest for Sauber, ahead of Lotus driver Pastor Maldonado.

Caterham pair Kamui Kobayashi and Will Stevens rounded out the grid, with the British debutant half a second behind his more experienced team-mate.