Daniel Ricciardo has secured a battling seventh place on the grid for the season’s Formula One Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi.
The Australian Renault driver, who suffered a dramatic engine failure resulting his car’s engine catching fire in Friday’s first practice session, clocked a best lap time of one minute 36.456 seconds for an initial eighth position in the UAE on Saturday.
Nico Hulkenberg, driving the second Renault car, was tenth on the grid for Sunday’s race in Nico tenth with a 1:36.710secs.
Both drivers were later upgraded a place with the application of post-qualifying penalties.
“I’m really happy with today’s qualifying. It’s cool for both cars to be in Q3,” Ricciardo said.
“We’ve made a good turnaround from Friday and that’s what I’m most proud about. The jump we made is really strong and encouraging and credit to the team for working hard overnight.
“It was close out there again today but we’re in the mix inside the top ten. There’s a bit of pressure in the fight for fifth and there’s a job to do. We delivered today and now we have to deliver tomorrow.”
Six-times world champion Lewis Hamilton put his title-winning Mercedes back on pole for the race.
The British driver set a best lap of 1:34.779 on the 5.554-km Yas Marina course, beating teammate Valtteri Bottas by 0.194 seconds.
Bottas qualified second but will start at the back of the grid due to engine penalties, meaning that Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will join Hamilton on the front row for Sunday’s race.
The pole was Hamilton’s first since Germany in July, a run of nine races without starting from the top slot, but his fifth in Abu Dhabi and 88th of his career.
“It was such a long slog trying to get this pole position in and we just kept our heads down and the guys have done a great job,” Hamilton said.
“Yesterday was quite wobbly so I had to recompose myself and had to come back today and re-focus. I managed to dial in the car with the hard work of the engineers.”
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who ends the season with the most poles (seven), will start in third place with teammate Sebastian Vettel fourth.
The pair collided in Brazil two weeks ago, ending their races and leading to a meeting at the Maranello factory to clear the air.
