In the 24th and final grand prix of the 2024 season, McLaren has an opportunity to do something many fans of theirs have never seen them do before – win the constructors’ championship.
Fittingly, the team they must defeat for that honour is their oldest and fiercest traditional rival: Ferrari.
After showing promising pace across the first two days of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri secured one of the most important front row lockouts the team has ever taken, right ahead of Carlos Sainz Jnr in third
“I think we’ve both been driving well this weekend and we knew the pressure was on, from ourselves,” Norris said after taking his eighth pole of 2024. “So we’ve both performed well. We’ve both got everything out of the car. But this is a long race, and many things can happen, so we’re definitely not going to get ahead of ourselves.”
Ferrari’s day was bittersweet to say the least. At a track he struggled severely last year, Sainz showed that Ferrari were by no means far off McLaren for performance by being the closest to them in qualifying two tenths away from Norris’s pole. But not only was team mate Charles Leclerc hit by a 10-place grid penalty on Friday, a brutal Q2 elimination after exceeding track limits means that Ferrari’s second car will start down in 19th.
“I think it was already extremely difficult,” Sainz admitted. “It was a bit of a ‘mission impossible’ already before the weekend started.
“Then we arrived in FP1 and Charles’ battery died before running and the grid penalty obviously was a huge shock, a huge blow. On top of that, you get the Q2 situation for Charles. It just makes things obviously a lot more difficult.
But in his final race for Ferrari, Sainz is in no way going to give up the fight. If Ferrari are to lose this title, Sainz is determined to push both McLarens to the bitter end.
“Until the chequered flag comes down tomorrow, anything can happen,” he said. “I’m going to keep fighting for whatever comes. And I’m sure Charles from the back will push flat out to get every single point available and see what happens with the McLarens.”
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Weather
To the surprise of no one, the Abu Dhabi Grand prix will be a dry race. There is not even the slightest chance of rain hitting the Yas Marina circuit, meaning the constructors’ championship will be decided over a dry race.
The race itself will run in conditions largely similar to qualifying and Friday’s second practice session, with ambient temperatures just under 30C for the 5pm race start time and then steadily falling through the race as the sun sets. Wind has not been too big a factor so far this weekend and is unlikely to be again on Sunday, with wind speeds expected to be lower than the previous two days.
Start
The 177 metre run from pole position to the braking point for the first corner is among the shorter ones of the season. Even if the driver starting second on the grid, on the left-hand side, manages to get a better start than the pole winner and has the inside line for the first corner, there is not a lot of room for them to attempt an out braking move into turn one.
In the last ten grands prix at Yas Marina, the driver on pole has led the opening lap eight times, with Lewis Hamilton the only driver able to take the lead from second on the grid – from Nico Rosberg in 2014 and Max Verstappen in their infamous 2021 showdown.
However, all that is likely to be rendered moot as Piastri will likely be under strict orders not to attack his team mate too hard at the start, given that it doesn’t matter what order they finish in, but that they are ahead of Ferrari.
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Strategy
It is a good thing for several teams that many drivers have already used up all of their soft tyres this weekend – as they will almost certainly not be needing them for Sunday.
Last year, the field were fairly universal in their approach to the race and a two-stop strategy. The top eight finishers all employed the same strategy of starting on mediums before two stints on the hard tyres, with Yuki Tsunoda one-stopping to ninth and Lance Stroll the only driver inside the top ten to run a hard-hard-medium strategy.
This year, Pirelli predict a one-stop as being the best option, starting on mediums and switching to hard tyres – as was the case last weekend in Qatar. That is based on the levels of tyre degradation being lower this weekend than was observed at the same event last season.
Overtaking
Yas Marina is not known for producing thrilling racing but it’s fair to say that the extensive reprofiling at either ends of the track for the 2021 season has had a demonstrable impact on overtaking opportunities around the lap.
The last seven races held around the circuit’s old configuration – 2014-2020 – produced an average of 25.7 successful on-track overtakes outside of the first lap, per race. Following the modifications, the first three races have averaged 44.3 passes per race.
The two most obvious passing spots sit at the ends of the two DRS zones at turns six and nine. But the DRS zone along the back straight approaching turn six has been reduced by 50 metres for this year. This did not seem to affect the prospects of passing in Saturday’s F2 sprint race, however, with several moves made into the two turns.
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Safety Cars
With its almost endless asphalt run off areas, Yas Marina is not a circuit that produces Safety Cars often. The last ten have only produced three in total, with only two Virtual Safety Car periods needed over that same time.
The last two Abu Dhabi Grands Prix have run entirely free of Safety Cars, meaning the last deployment in a race here was the most controversial one in the sport’s history, following Nicholas Latifi crashing out at turn 14 towards the end of the race in 2021.
One to watch
There is only one driver to pick for this final weekend of the season: Lewis Hamilton.
His final race for Mercedes sees him starting far lower than both he and his team would have wanted in 16th – although it’s likely that he deserved to be much higher given the pace he had shown up to the end of Q1.
Like Michael Schumacher, who capped off his time as a Ferrari driver with a stunning fight from the back in his final race before his first retirement at Brazil in 2006, Hamilton will be desperate to emulate his fellow seven-times champion by producing one final magic moment.
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Over to you
Will Sainz be able to fight against the McLarens for victory on Sunday? Share your views on the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in the comments.
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2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
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