There have been many ‘lasts’ on the beginning grid for the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
It was the final time both Sauber driver would begin a System 1 grand prix for the foreseeable future. The identical was additionally true for Kevin Magnussen and, it appears more and more possible, Sergio Perez as effectively.
Franco Colapinto appears more likely to bag a return after his final look for Williams earlier than making means for Carlos Sainz Jnr. However the driver who triggered the Ferrari man’s transfer was at all times going to be one of many evening’s greatest tales.
Lewis Hamilton, in his 245th and closing begin as a Mercedes driver, lined up solely sixteenth – and that was two locations higher than he’d certified, due to others’ penalties. The stage was set for a restoration efficiency worthy of one of many sport’s greats, however may the identical driver who’d struggled so terribly in Qatar ship it?
Hamilton had loved great success since leaving McLaren 12 years earlier. His former group, in the meantime, had been within the doldrums for a lot of the time, and solely now had been poised to clinch the constructors’ championship for the primary time in a technology – offering they may see off Ferrari.
McLaren held the whip hand at the beginning. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had annexed the entrance row forward of Sainz. The second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc languished even additional again than Hamilton – nineteenth, due to a penalty for a battery change and a deleted lap in Q2.
World champion Max Verstappen regarded effectively positioned to capitalise on the championship-minded drivers forward of him from fourth, although he solely moved as much as that place due to Nico Hulkenberg’s penalty from qualifying. When the 5 purple lights went out, nonetheless, Verstappen proved far too keen to say his benefit.
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The RB20 made one other of its faultless getaways from a low-grip beginning place. Verstappen was instantly alongside Sainz and fancied a glance on the within of Piastri. However this was an excessive amount of – he understeered extensive on the exit and thumped the McLaren, sending each right into a spin.
Additional on the opening lap, Valtteri Bottas knocked Sergio Perez sideways at flip seven. The Crimson Bull suffered terminal harm, ending Perez’s race and presumably his F1 profession. The Digital Security Automotive was briefly summoned however as soon as the race resumed they had been flat out to the ultimate flag.
Norris aced the restart and led Sainz, adopted by Pierre Gasly who regarded well-placed to safe sixth place within the constructors’ championship for Alpine. George Russell, fourth, made fruitless makes an attempt to go Gasly into flip 9 over the next laps. Hulkenberg gave chase in fifth, adopted by Fernando Alonso and Kevin Magnussen who had profited from the first-lap dramas to run seventh.
Leclerc, nonetheless, had performed even higher out of the chaos and vaulted 11 locations to eighth. The primary lap had gone even higher than Ferrari dreamed: Leclerc had gained 5 extra locations than another driver had on the primary lap of a grand prix this yr, and one of many McLarens was now operating within the nineteenth place he had began from.
Hamilton, the one driver to take the beginning on exhausting tyres, may very well be moderately glad to seek out himself twelfth. However additional progress proved tough: Whereas Liam Lawson provided no resistance to ‘secure mate’ Verstappen, who took tenth off him on lap three, the RB driver stored the Mercedes behind far longer.
Norris couldn’t construct up a passable hole over Sainz by means of the primary stint. He additionally observed his group’s scenario turn out to be rather more precarious after the beginning.
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“I used to be watching the TV screens and I noticed Charles was P8 after lap one, so I used to be just a little bit nervous,” he admitted afterwards. “Carlos was by no means far-off. I believe the most important I received the hole was to, like, 4.2 seconds within the first stint, and that’s not a really good hole in my view. It’s a bit too near my consolation.”
Certain sufficient, when Norris pitted in response to Sainz’s lap 25 cease, although he loved the quickest full pit cease of the race, the hole between them slashed. Sainz spent simply 4 thousandths of a second longer on pit street than Norris, and had the hole right down to 1.6 seconds briefly – threatening to get inside DRS vary.
On the similar time, Sainz knew he couldn’t afford to mistreat the set of tyres which he wanted to take him 33 laps to the chequered flag. “I did a really quick out-lap to try to get inside DRS vary, making an attempt to overhaul Lando after the pit cease,” he defined. “Additionally in case that they had a half a second to a second slower pit cease that would put us inside attain – that’s why we despatched the undercut.
“Then after he got here out in entrance of me, you undergo this thought course of: Do I push like hell now to get inside DRS, however Lando may also push and preserve me out of the DRS and meaning I’m going to destroy my tyres and never have an opportunity on the finish of the race of placing him below strain? Or I save my tyres to try to put them below strain on the finish like I did within the first stint?
“So it’s a really tough factor to guage with these tyres to make use of the primary three laps to extract the height of the tyre or to avoid wasting that to the tip of the race.”
However given the way in which the ultimate stint panned out, Sainz doubts there was something extra he may have performed. “I don’t assume it could have mattered,” he mirrored. “I believe McLaren and Lando right now, with a tough tyre, they had been only one or two tenths faster and he may have used that tempo every time he wished, to maintain me at bay.
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“On the medium I actually strongly believed we had an opportunity. However little by little with the exhausting, it simply appeared prefer it was getting harder and harder. That’s the place I believe the weak spot of our automobile began to additionally seem and the strengths of the McLaren began to look once more and it slipped away from us a bit.”
Leclerc moved his means as much as third by selecting off the Haas drivers and Alonso, none of which had been inclined to waste their time preventing him, then pitting early to leap forward of Russell. Gasly held third till he made his very early pit cease, which glad Alpine’s goal of overlaying off the Haas drivers, a job made simpler by Magnussen struggling a sluggish pit cease after which being harpooned by Bottas.
Regardless of pitting later than Leclerc, Russell didn’t have the tempo to chase him down. As an alternative after lap 43 the second Mercedes of his group mate started to loom bigger in his mirrors.
Mercedes had delayed Hamilton’s pit cease so long as they may, aided by the information Verstappen had been handed a 10-second time penalty by the stewards. “Silly idiots,” fumed the Crimson Bull driver when his group lastly knowledgeable him as he entered the pits on lap 29, lengthy after the penalty had been issued.
As soon as Hamilton picked off Hulkenberg and Gasly he started to chase down Russell. He got here near reaching DRS vary on the penultimate lap. Then Liam Lawson’s RB got here to a cease and the DRS zones had been briefly disabled, threatening to disclaim Hamilton a last-lap assault.
They had been reactivated simply in time, nonetheless, and Hamilton zoomed up behind his group mate on the again straight. Heading into flip 9, he swept across the exterior of the opposite Mercedes and into fourth place, as Russell heeded group principal Toto Wolff’s warning to “preserve it clear”.
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That was some measure of recompense for Hamilton’s depressing Saturday, the place an ill-advised technique in qualifying and misfortune with a bollard conspired to depart him 18th. Behind Russell, Verstappen was a lonely sixth on a uncommon day when he by no means figured, Gasly secured sixth within the factors for Alpine with seventh place, adopted by Hulkenberg and Alonso.
The second McLaren of Piastri claimed the ultimate level. However he may have performed extra to assist his group had he not rear-ended Colapinto after the VSC interval, which earned him the identical penalty Verstappen received for ruining his race.
Piastri’s plight meant McLaren suffered a nerve-shredding wait over the second half of the race, to verify their first constructors’ championship in 26 years. With Norris main the 2 Ferraris, any drama for him threatened to ship the title their rivals’ means.
However there was no repeat of the yellow flag drama which wrecked Norris’s race per week earlier. And the MCL38 continued its unprecedented run of by no means letting its drivers down all season lengthy.
Lewis Hamilton spent the primary six years of his profession driving for nobody aside from McLaren. He received the drivers’ title with them, however by no means took them to the constructors’ championship.
Lando Norris has now spent as lengthy with them, however ended his sixth yr on the group by delivering the constructors’ crown they’ve waited for since earlier than he was born. The group erupted in pleasure.
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“I’m very, very comfortable,” he beamed afterwards. “Simply as I’m certain everybody within the group is.
“Immediately was a really big day for all of us. It was ours to lose right now and I’m certain at sure moments individuals thought that it was not far-off from being misplaced: Two Ferraris up there and Charles doing a fantastic job to get again to the rostrum.
“Oscar was super-unlucky. He received taken out in flip one so, for a minute, my coronary heart was like, ‘oh God, it’s not wanting as possible’.
“But when I simply stored my head down and stored targeted, I knew I may ship and do what I received to do.”
Norris got here to phrases with shedding the drivers’ championship to Verstappen two weeks in the past, and declared himself proud to have returned the constructors’ crown to the historic group which introduced him into F1.
“The larger image, us successful a championship for the primary time in 26 years, you wouldn’t have thought that. While you say the identify ‘McLaren’ it feels incorrect to say that they’ve not received a championship in 25 years. However for me to be a part of that, for Oscar to be a part of it, is one thing we’re extremely pleased with.
“Delivering that for the group has put the most important smile as attainable on everybody’s face. That is the most important reward you may give again to everybody who designs the automobile, builds the automobile, will get the companions. Everybody has performed such a giant half, so simply proud. Proud is my greatest factor. After all, I’m comfortable I completed the season this manner, however I’m far more comfortable for the group than I’m for myself.”
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