The seven-time world champion was 0.214s quicker than Verstappen during the soft tyre runs ahead of a crucial qualifying session at the Yas Marina 💙Circuit in their winner-takes-all championship showdown. 

Both championship contenders abor🌺ted laps following lock ups, with Hamilton reporting overheating rear tyres and Verstappen struggling with balance issues on his Red Bull. 

“It just doesn’t fucking Turn at Turn 6, it’s unbelievable,” Verstappen reported after a lock up on 💞his first effort on the soft tyres. 

Red Bull also faced a reoccurence of its DRS issue in FP3, with the teaౠm seen changing Verstappen's rear-wing due to reliability concerns.  

For the second week in a row during a practice session, Hamilton unintentionally blocked Haas driver Niki📖ta Mazepin. The incident occurred as Hamilton exitedꦛ the pits, with Mazepin forced to take evasive action at Turn 3. 

Valtteri Bot🦩tas was third-fastest but ended up 0.751s adrift of his Mercedes teammate duri🍸ng the qualifying simulation runs. 

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez took fourth ahead of Lando Norris’s McLaren, while the AlphaTauri pair of Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly continued their st🧸rong form in Abu Dhabi to take sixth and seventh. 

Completing the top 10 order were Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, the McLaren 🐻of Daniel Ricciardo, andꦏ Charles Leclerc. 

Qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Priဣx takes place at 5pm local time (1pm GMT).