Advantage McLaren On The First Day In Abu Dhabi

McLaren looked on strong form on the first day of free practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The Woking team drivers topped the time sheet in the second session, the most representative one as it took place at the same time as Sunday’s race, namely as the sun goes down. Lando Norris was quickest in 1’23”517 ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri (1’23”751). McLaren would therefore appear to have the upper hand over Constructors’ title rivals Ferrari. Charles Leclerc was fastest in the first session in 1’24”321, but in the second he was down in sixth in 1’24”201, while team-mate Carlos Sainz was fourth in 1’24”099. On top of that, Leclerc has a ten place grid penalty for having had to fit one more power unit component than allowed in the sporting regulations.

There were no fewer than six young drivers on track for the first session: Arthur Leclerc for Ferrari, Felipe Drugovich for Aston Martin, Ryo Hirakawa for McLaren, Isack Hadjar for Red Bull, Luke Browning for Williams and Ayumu Iwasa for Racing Bulls. Fastest of this group was the Brazilian Drugovich, ninth overall in 1’25”471.

Today’s lap times were considerably quicker than those from free practice last year, proof of the progress made in performance terms with these cars over the past twelve months, given that the tyre base line has remained the same: 1”751 the difference for FP1, 1’292 for FP2.

Lando Norris

“A good first day in the car, things are feeling good but there’s some room to improve ahead of tomorrow’s Quali. I think we might have shown more performance than our competitors today. We won’t get ahead of ourselves, but we’ll stay focused to keep pushing as a team throughout the weekend.”

Oscar Piastri

“It was a good session for us today. I was comfortable in the car from the first lap and the pace was strong. I’m feeling in a good spot going into tomorrow, but the competition is also looking decent. Thank you to Ryo for his support in FP1 this morning and for giving us valuable data. We’ll continue to make tweaks overnight and ensure we continue with this momentum into tomorrow.”

Simone Berra – Pirelli Chief Engineer

“The final round of the season said something about how much quicker the cars have become in the space of a year. The improvement in performance is significant when one considers that parameters such as the track and the tyres have remained unchanged. That can be seen from the fact that today’s best time is already 72 thousandths faster than Verstappen’s pole time of last year (1’23”445).

“The other important data concerns the use of the compounds. For the fourth time this season, after Sakhir, Melbourne and Las Vegas, no driver used the Hard tyre over the two hours of Friday free practice. It’s a clear indication of how the C3 is definitely considered the main tyre for Sunday’s race by the teams. Furthermore, we saw that most of the drivers who did a long run, opted for the Medium. One can therefore begin to draw the conclusion that a one-stop strategy, using one set of Medium and one of Hard, must be favourite, with the second set of Hards on hand in case of a Safety Car or if degradation is greater than expected.

“Other interesting aspect from today are graining, which varied from team to team, but not in a particular impactful way, especially as degradation is also quite low, and then the track evolution, significant in FP1 before settling down in FP2.”

Formula 2

Victor Martins will start the final Feature Race of the season from pole position. The Frenchman was 55 thousandths faster than championship leader, Brazil’s Gabriel Bortoleto, who outqualified his other two rivals in the classification, Estonia’s Paul Aron, third, 68 thousandths off Martins and France’s Isack Hadjar (fourth at 0”128). This weekend will decide the outcome of both the Drivers’ and Teams’ championships for 2024, both with three contenders. They will be able to choose from a different pair of compounds to those used last year. an additional challenge for the drivers and engineers to deal with as they try and get the most out of the Supersoft and the Medium over the various stages of the weekend. Along with the organisers, the decision was taken to create this bigger gap between the two compounds, compared to last year’s Soft and Medium selection in order to make the choice of specification for the start of the Feature Race even more of a factor. Although the Supersoft will be subject to significant degradation, it will offer a considerable performance advantage over the opening laps. On paper, the fastest strategy involves lining up on the grid with the Medium to go for the longest possible first stint, but any possible Safety Car period in the early stages would put those who have gone with the opposite choice a good chance.

F1 Academy

Having secured three pole positions, Abbi Pulling (Alpine-Rodin Motorsport) can once again celebrate winning the 2024 F1 Academy championship. Albeit by the smallest of margins, her only rival Doriane Pin (Mercedes-Prema Racing) can no longer catch her. The addition of a third race in Abu Dhabi, to make up for the one cancelled last Sunday in Lusail had actually put the title for the all-women series back into play. However, today Pulling did not delay in confirming her superiority, setting the three fastest laps of the qualifying session, the best being a 1’56”081, thus picking up the points for securing pole for tomorrow’s two races and the third one on Sunday. Chloe Chambers for Haas-Campos Racing (1’56’’201) will be alongside Pullin on the grid for race 1, and waiting for the lights to go out from row two will be Hamda Al Qubaisi (Red Bull Racing-MP Motorsport) and Bianca Bustamante (McLaren-ART Grand Prix). The new F1 Academy champion was presented with her Pirelli Pole Position Award tonight by content creator Tuesday Le Roux.