What did the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix show? Verstappen symbolically confirmed his dominance, Mercedes deservedly defended second place

The last race of this season is over and it offered a lot to F1 fans. Not only in terms of the battles on the track, but also in terms of the different strategic choices. The winner was Max Verstappen, who symbolically confirmed his dominance at the Yas Marina circuit. Mercedes defended its second place in the Constructors’ Cup. What did the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix show from the point of view of each team?

A dominant Red Bull

In this case, the statistics and the numbers are very clear. Max Verstappen achieved his 19th win of the season, surpassing Sebastian Vettel (54) in the number of victories, and he is still only 26 years old! He is the first driver in F1 history to lead 1,000 laps in a single season.

However, the first round of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix looked interesting to say the least. Charles Leclerc had an excellent start and was threatening the three-time champion just as the last race of the season was about to begin. But he coped perfectly with the Monegasque’s pressure and gradually pulled away over the following laps.

As I wrote on my X account after qualifying, I was expecting a clinical performance from Verstappen, and it came again.

DEJME SI KRÁTKÉ ZHODNOCENÍ KVALIFIKACE

🔵RED BULL se může jevit zle jak chce, ale stejně tam oproti ostatním vytáhne něco navíc. V závodě od Maxe čekám klinickou práci a uzavření sezony 2023 dalším vítězstvím. Checo zajel moc hezký čas, no nakonec to těsně nevyšlo kvůli… pic.twitter.com/UreKvpcIJ2

— Tomáš Myšák (@mysak_tomas) November 25, 2023

Sergio Pérez messed up badly in qualifying (again) and only started from ninth place due to track limits. But his pace was great in the race and he would have celebrated a podium if he hadn’t messed up again – yes, he did indeed deserve a penalty for his duel with Lando Norris.

The damage limitation of a final fourth place is pretty good, but it’s still the fastest monoposto on the grid this year. The man nicknamed “Checo” shouldn’t be in these situations on a regular basis.

Ferrari’s strategic failure in the battle for second place

The battle for the final second place in the Constructors’ Cup was really out of hand. But again, in the same breath, points and trophies are fought for all year round, not in one race. Carlos Sainz was already disappointing in qualifying when he didn’t have a good pace and mainly paid for the traffic.

The race was read very badly by Ferrari from Sainz’s point of view and it turned out accordingly – both strategically and in terms of results. Leclerc had, as I write above, a very good first lap.

His race pace was very good throughout the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and he actually held second place with ease in the end. Most of the time in the second stint he stayed around the 1:28.400 – 1:28.600 range. The Monegasque set a real best at the Yas Marina circuit.

A successful Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for Mercedes

George Russell had a great run. If it wasn’t for a penalty for Perez, he probably would have missed out on a podium. But it’s the result that counts, and it’s worth it. Although it is a fact that Russell’s podium finish was due to a bad pit stop by McLaren.

Anyway, Russell had better pace than Norris in the second stint and who knows if Lando would have made the podium from that perspective even if the mechanics hadn’t messed up his stop.

LAP 15/58

Norris and Russell pit on the same lap and it's Mercedes who profit from a slow stop by McLaren 😮#F1 #AbuDhabiGP pic.twitter.com/JayBHFnfjG

— Formula 1 (@F1) November 26, 2023

But the British driver in the service of Mercedes also probably reached a realistic maximum. Lewis Hamilton, in my opinion, got out of the W14 at the end of the race and will never be seen near it again.

He rather struggled through the race weekend, and although he had some good manoeuvres in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, finishing ninth knowing he couldn’t even keep up with Yuki Cunda in the AlphaTauri must have added considerably to his frustration.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – McLaren without a podium

Oscar Piastri was gradually losing form in the races towards the end of the season and the fact that he was a rookie this year caught up with him. Sunday’s race was a reflection of that. But I’m very curious to see how Oscar works on himself over the winter.

Especially in terms of tyre management and race pace. Anyway, sixth position from Abu Dhabi is no shame, quite the opposite. Norris already made the race difficult in qualifying, where he again made a mistake and started fifth.

In the first stint, together with Verstappen and Leclerc, he had the best pace of all, but then his plans and hopes for a podium finish fell apart like a house of cards. A bad pit-stop, and then in the second stint it wasn’t quite the same in terms of race pace.

Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso finally made it and defended his final fourth place in the drivers’ championship! The legendary Spaniard started a series of pit-stops on lap 13, overtook Sainz and Tsunoda in the closing laps and finished a well-deserved seventh.

Aston Martin, however, did an absolutely brilliant job strategically with Lance Stroll. After a tyre change (Stroll changed to a medium set) on lap 44, he was over 10 seconds down on Esteban Ocon from 12th place! Within 8 laps the latter had closed the gap and passed Ocon outright.

The final tenth place in the points was due to Sainz’s retirement. However, given the race pace and fresher tyres, he probably would have passed him anyway. In addition, the Ferrari-serving Spaniard had to make one more pit-stop due to the rule about fitting two different tyre compounds for the grand prix.

Scuderia AlphaTauri

Cunoda put in an excellent performance indeed. This is symbolized especially by the final duel with Hamilton. The Japanese didn’t let the seven-time champion take his position despite having 13 laps fresher tyres!

Give it up for @yukitsunoda07! 🤩

Your #F1DriverOfTheDay 💪#AbuDhabiGP @salesforce pic.twitter.com/dISUZvsUor

— Formula 1 (@F1) November 26, 2023

In the end, Daniel Ricciardo finished just half a second away from the tenth place. He had originally started from position 15, but the AlphaTauri simply woke up too late. Otherwise, since Cunoda and Ricciardo have moved the team forward, does anyone remember driving for AlphaTauri for half a season? Nyck De Vries?

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – the lackluster Alpine

It was a rather lacklustre performance from the Alpine riders overall. Pierre Gasly didn’t have a good race pace, and what the team was strategising with Esteban Ocon is a mystery to me. 42 laps on a non-functioning hardest set of tyres – that was perhaps a punishment for the French driver.

A potential internal battle for the final 11th place in the drivers’ championship almost completely fizzled out. Well, apart from a couple of radios, that is, but ultimately it was all for naught.

Williams, Haas, Alfa Romeo

Alexander Albon and Logan Sargeant had already failed to live up to their promising potential in qualifying, and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was a no-brainer in terms of race pace. Haas – I’ll write that again, he simply wasn’t good enough in the race. And if we hadn’t seen the Alfa Romeo in the footage a few times, we wouldn’t even know it was in the race.

Source: F1 TV, Twitter / X