REPORT: Quali complete for 2025

Fine margins were once again on display in 2025 as Abu Dhabi's season-closing qualifying session saw slender gaps separate the 20-car grid.

Atlassian Williams Racing qualified in P12 and P17, with Carlos Sainz set to start from the sixth row and Alex Albon on the ninth for tomorrow's race.

An ever-quickening Yas Marina lap had the field racing to escape the drop zone, and Carlos missed out on Q3 by only 0.008s, while Alex was a narrow 0.030s from Q2.

After finishing FP3 with Alex in P10 and Carlos in P12, we knew that the midfield fight for the top-10 shootout would be fierce, and so it proved in qualifying.

Alex's best lap of a 1:23.416 was within a tenth of P11, but despite that small margin, Albono exited qualifying after the first 18 minutes in P17.

A purple first sector for Carlos aided him to set a 1:23.187 lap and sit P7 when everyone had completed their laps and one FW47 was heading into Q2.

An early effort of 1:23.172 briefly saw our Spaniard sitting in P2, but the track sped up again and Carlos needed to improve on his second lap.

That improvement came with quicker efforts in the first two sectors, but the lap of 1:23.042 had him 0.001s from P11, and 0.008s from P10 and Q3.

Nonetheless, the pace of the FW47 was again on display in this final Saturday of the season, and we'll be looking to fight forwards tomorrow as the season reaches its climax.

Carlos Sainz: I’m relatively happy with where we are today, as we made a good step from the practice sessions. It was one of the tightest sessions I remember, with only one tenth separating P6-P15 in Q2, and I unfortunately fell short by 0.008 of a second. For tomorrow, it’s looking to be on the limit between a one and a two-stop race, which can result in interesting strategies. I’m confident we can fight to make our way into the points, and the aim is to finish off the 2025 season strong!

Alex Albon: Difficult session. We couldn’t get the tyres in the right window and hit traffic in the final sector of the lap. There were a few small details which I couldn’t quite nail and, with such a tight field, every millisecond counts. Strategy will make a big difference in the race tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see how each team approaches it. Tomorrow will be tough, but we’ll look to take advantage of any opportunities that come our way.

James Vowles: First of all, congratulations to Max. Really impressive laps out there and he was dominant through sector 3. Speaking of which, that was the sector we couldn't quite get right today. The gaps were miniscule. Just a handful of milliseconds separated five cars but that is the state of the sport today and it's brilliant – it is really the highest level of competition we have ever seen, and you have to get absolutely everything perfect. In the case of Carlos today, he was strong everywhere, we just need to review what else we can do to get more performance out of sector 3. With Alex, when the field is this tight, just a tenth punishes you, but he is competitive and I'm confident we can come back fighting tomorrow. These races are unpredictable and we're in the best seat in the house to see what happens on race day.