The Saturday in F1 Abu Dhabi GP saw McLaren take centerstage as expected with Ferrari on the backfoot amid some wild results.
The Saturday in F1 Abu Dhabi GP was hectic all-through in qualifying but McLaren scored when it mattered in Q3 with a 1-2 finish where Lando Norris headed Oscar Piastri in the order. The Brit did struggle a bit early on, but found pace when it mattered in the Top 10.
The Australian had a scare of losing a lap just like Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, but they both had their laps re-instated. It added to the stress though. For the Mexican, it was in Q1 while Piastri faced the same in Q3. But they got through it eventually, which was crucial for McLaren.
They are in prime position against Ferrari where Charles Leclerc dropped out in Q2 due to track limits. The Monegasque already has a 10-place penalty which will see him start from the back of the grid. The team does have Carlos Sainz in the front, but he will have his work cut out being the lone car.
Red Bull had some relief with both cars in the Top 10, where Perez was 10th and Max Verstappen in fifth. The Dutchman led the way initially despite a scary end to his lap where he almost lost it before catching it. Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton did not have any luck in Q1.
He was hit by a bollard left on the track by Haas’ Kevin Magnussen on his final Q1 run which hampered his lap and eventually cost him a place outside the first leg. Teammate George Russell did make it through but did not have enough pace to challenge for the top positions.
Norris: “It was very good, yeah. Quali was a bit of a struggle, honestly. We just expected, probably, to be a little bit better than what we were. The weekend so far has been quite straightforward from our side. It just seems like everyone caught up a lot come qualifying, and we had to start pushing a lot more. It was a good lap. It was not the cleanest, but sometimes when you’re close enough to the edge and it’s just a little bit untidy, sometimes it’s actually quite a nice place to be. So I had a couple snaps, and I had a big snap into 9, the high speed. I just made a mistake. That hurt me a touch, but otherwise it was a nice lap. I put the rest of it together pretty well. Just not an easy circuit to do.
“We had a bit to gain in quali, because Max was looking a little bit quicker than us through the most part of it. So I knew I had to pull something out. I wouldn’t be so sure about that. But if that’s your analysis, then… We’ll see. I think on a day like today with DRS and things, it’s probably not our biggest strength. I think come the race, things even out a little bit more. So potentially, we knew we’d be a little bit on the back foot today with straight-line speed.
“We’re hoping tomorrow it kind of comes back to us, because comparing to Ferrari, we’re a little bit down. And comparing to Red Bull, we’re quite a chunk down. It’s not necessarily just downforce. We’re at the lowest of what our wing can provide. The next step for us is too big. So maybe other people are just in more of a sweet spot and more in an optimal range this weekend than we are ourselves. The car’s been great all weekend. It’s performing well, and we’ll make sure it does the same tomorrow.”
Piastri: “It wasn’t the best final lap. There’s a couple of corners that I definitely would like to have again. But, you know, I’ll take the front row. You know, it’s been a bit of a tricky few weekends in qualifying. So, you know, the result at least is nice. But yeah, I knew that there was a couple of places immediately where I left a bit on the table. So, nope, that’s how it is at the top end of the sport. You can’t leave anything there because you’ll get eaten alive. And unfortunately did that today. And, you know, that’s why I’m not on pole. So, yeah, probably wish I had that one again. It didn’t help, but I knew starting the lap or even leaving the pits that that lap was at least on the board again, but I knew that I would need more to keep at least that position, or obviously I want to go for pole. So I knew I needed more anyway. And I found a bit more, just not quite enough. So yeah, it was a slightly stressful few minutes. I didn’t really dwell on it too much but I did think I was in. Clearly it was so close that they’ve probably given me the benefit of the doubt, but yeah it wasn’t exactly ideal.”
Sainz: “Yeah, I felt like I did some very good, very clean laps in Q1 and Q2, probably finding the limit of the car very early on in qualifying and then giving myself and giving maybe the team a bit of hope that we could fight for pole position. But I think as soon as these two guys started putting, I think, a good lap together in Q3… I think my lap was pretty good. Obviously, there’s always little things here and there that you would like to change. But when Lando talks about that he didn’t quite nail Turn 9 or he did a small mistake, then you realise that it’s the same for everyone. And, you know, we’ve been a weekend three to four tenths behind. I’ll take being two tenths off in quali and hopefully we can match their race pace and get in the fight tomorrow.
“I think it was already extremely difficult. It was, like I said, a bit of a mission impossible already before the weekend started. Then we arrived to 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 at the same time, It is very likely that even in a perfect weekend where we both nail laps in Q3 and we even fight for the win, these two guys are still up there. So it was always going to be difficult. It’s just made our life even more difficult. But until the chequered flag comes down tomorrow, you know, anything can happen. And 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. I don’t know how it’s going to feel.
“I can only tell you how it feels up until now and I can tell you the level of focus of the whole team and my level of focus has been so high to try and execute a perfect weekend and try to win the race tomorrow and try to be on pole today, that honestly I haven’t had much time to be emotional, apart from obviously little details that the team is doing so far to make me feel at home and feel proud of this last race with the team. But at the same time, I’m pretty sure tomorrow before the race or after the race, it will start to sink in. It will start to hit me a bit and it will get emotional. But the truth is that up until now, I’ve had no time for that. We’re all so focused and we all want that constructors or that last win together. You know that you have no time to get too emotional, but tomorrow I will for sure.”
Verstappen: “When I was facing towards the wall I was like ‘this could be quite spicy’, but it was not quick. I think the whole weekend we’ve not found the sweet spot, unfortunately. Maybe we looked okay in Q1 and Q2 but most of the time people were aborting their laps on new tyres and then every time in the beginning of the session people behind me were on scrubbed tyres and not new. Then in Q3 it was OK but just not how I liked it, the car was never really planted, it was difficult in some corners and it made it very difficult to be consistent. It happened in many different corners, because if you try to adjust one or two and then something else happened in another corner. The front-end was bit better.
“The balance shift that we get throughout the corner at some tracks is a bit more limiting than at others. [For the second run] I adjusted the front wing a bit and everything was made worse. I should have been on the front row but it is still not bad. If we fix our problems, we will pick up a lot of lap time. The balance shift we have makes it very difficult to find a good compromise with the tools that we have in the car, so we need to work on that for next year. If we can fix that then I am confident we can have a quick race car. I still think that McLaren is too quick.
“I hope that I can race with Ferrari, with Carlos especially as Charles starts from the back. Then there is that spicy battle next to me for sixth, so let’s see how that goes for those around me. To really fight McLaren it is unlikely as they’ve been on it the whole weekend again and so comfortably quick with both drivers. This time it is not like Qatar when we nailed it over a lap and in the race they were still very fast but we hung in there. This time we are a bit further behind.”
Hamilton: “I don’t have any emotion, I am pretty chill, just got a bollard under the car, nothing I could do. The timing for that to get under the car is…I don’t feel the pain. I’ve just been very present, been enjoying every moment. I’ve got the car in a really good place, set up changes, making the cars to the last five races this weekend. It’s been feeling really great. And so it is unfortunate. That’s [the last sector] where we struggled the most as a team this weekend, but the car was feeling really good in general, P3 I was there. So honestly, I thought we could be fighting for podium, my race pace was second quickest, but it wasn’t meant to be. If [penalties to others] that’s the case. I’m really grateful for those extra spots. The pace was decent. It’s not going to be easy to overtake tomorrow but I’m going to work on strategy now and set up a fight for a podium. If I can get into the top 10 that would be amazing.”
Leclerc: Obviously, I don’t feel good after qualifying like that where we were a little bit better. It’s very difficult. It’s obviously very difficult, but it’s very difficult for everybody and I was on the wrong side of things in Q2 so I can only blame myself. It’s true that I don’t think I would have managed to beat the McLarens, they still were too strong, but we could have been fourth. So yeah, when it was either P15 or P20 and P15 is better than P20, and with my lap time deleted, it makes us start from P20. So we are not making our life any easier. However, it motivates me to do something very special tomorrow. My goal remains the same to win the Constructors’ Championship, and I still believe in it as much as I did yesterday even though on paper it’s going to be a lot more difficult.
“The race pace was okay, but McLaren seemed to be a lot stronger. But again, we’ve changed quite a bit the car since FP3, so I think we went in the right direction. And if anything, our tyre degradation is better than others. So I would expect to be in a good position tomorrow. I believe in miracles. Yeah, it makes our life very difficult, that’s for sure. But with the 10-places penalty, it was always going to be difficult, but I see an opportunity to do something very special, and I’ll do my best to do it. And I think, yeah, I’ll believe in it until the very last lap.”
Perez: “Not really, but it’s been a bit of a summary of the season where when you try to balance it out, when you try to add a little bit of front-end, you take rear-end [out], and you are just on that difficult part. Unfortunately, I felt like we could have been a little bit more competitive. Also, in Q1, we compromised our qualifying because from then on, we were always in a scrub run, scrub and then new. And that really compromised the qualifying. From the car, it’s sensible. I knew I was seeing, I had the feeling because I was forced quite a lot, but it’s a shame. I think they shouldn’t be looking for track limits if they cannot control them properly. I think it’s going to be difficult because we’ve been adding a lot of front end to the car for qualifying, but I think the limitation tomorrow is going to be on the rear, so I expect a difficult race.”
The Top 10 featured several midfield names with Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg leading the charge. The German ended up fourth but was handed a penalty, to start seventh. It will be a close battle against Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, who recovered well to make it in the Top 10 in sixth.
He gains from Hulkenberg’s penalty which is crucial considering Alpine is ahead in the standings. Their teammates Magnussen and Jack Doohan did not fare as well, with the Dane knocked out in Q2 and the Australian last in the order after not getting a clean lap in the final attempt.
Kick Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas made it all-through to the Top 10 in ninth after a good show in his final qualifying. Teammate Zhou Guanyu had a tough run to be out in Q1 along with the Williams pair of Alexander Albon and Franco Colapinto, who did not enjoy the final qualifying.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso found pace in qualifying to make it in the Top 10 as well, but teammate Lance Stroll struggled to. Visa Cash App RB’s Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson just missed out and will have their task cut out to leap through the two teams in the standings.
Alonso: “I said that I had a good feeling. So yeah, I mean, we started on the wrong foot, for sure, the car was very disconnected front and rear. They were not talking to each other. We made some set-up changes overnight. We didn’t succeed in improving the performance, because FP3, we were 17th and 19th. So still not there. So we made further changes before qualifying, and it seems that we found the window where the car is happier. So yeah, these cars are so critical, the operating window is so narrow that it is not easy to find it. It seems that we did it before quali. Happy to start eighth, but it’s going to be a tough race tomorrow. For FP3, it was a bad traffic. It was a frustration building. But yeah, as usual, you know, some comments are good, some comments are bad, but FOM has this fix with me, with bad comments – but I’m happy with that. It’s their job.
“Yesterday I had some positive things [to say] as well but as I said, FOM, they have to sell that I’m the grumpy guy. They tried for many years and they will not succeed. I didn’t have a good time [in practice] but I think all these conversations are very private with your engineer. You are trying sometimes different things. You speak about some out-lap preparations that maybe I don’t agree with the engineers. They want to try anyway, it doesn’t work. So you tell them, ‘Wow, you know this – we knew it beforehand’, or something like that. But when you don’t have all that context behind and you just put the radio message, it’s just wrong. But it is the way they do it.”
Hulkenberg: “I had a good feeling from P1 yesterday and had a good idea that top 10 was definitely possible this weekend. But that good? No, I did not expect. So many of the top dogs are struggling a little bit but the car has been good, we have been good on the execution side, so a very good qualy for us. We have shown all year that it’s not the qualy car anymore, that we are good on Sundays too, so I think there’s all to play for tomorrow. It’s obviously going to be a challenge. There are a bunch of very similar-paced cars behind us and obviously a few faster ones with Max and Checo and the Ferrari [Leclerc], so I expect a challenging tough race.”
Gasly: “I’m very happy with today’s Qualifying result. The team has worked extremely hard all weekend and we managed to improve our performance between Practice to Qualifying. I’ve not felt that comfortable in the car and we went into Qualifying not too sure on what we could achieve. We managed to qualify in front of George [Russell], who was on pole position last week, and we’re just behind Max, the world champion, so that shows much we’ve progressed this season. Nico is in front so the battle is definitely on and it will be intense until the end. Tomorrow is a different exercise. This track on high fuel tends to be tough on the tyres so we will do our homework tonight and aim to be in a position to stay with Nico in the race.”
Bottas: “Obviously, I’m really happy with this result: getting into Q3 and qualifying P9, our best performance of the year, is great. It is almost unexpected, it kind of came out of nowhere: I knew we might have a chance, but after a tough FP3, I had somewhat tempered my expectations. Still, in qualifying, I managed to pull it together: honestly, it was one of the best laps of my life. I’m really satisfied, and I have to give huge thanks to the team for making this possible. Tomorrow’s race will be interesting: we know it’s going to be tough, but starting up here is the best possible way to give us a chance to be competitive.”
Tsunoda: “It was a bit of a difficult qualifying for us. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get through to Q3, but as a driver, you always want to go beyond expectations. My lap was okay, even if there’s always some room for improvement, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough today. Our main competitors seem very strong, but anything can happen and we’re not giving up, so we’ll do our best to recover positions during the race.”
Magnussen: “Lewis was coming very close behind Bottas, I think. There was someone coming and I let him past, and I wasn’t aware that Lewis was right on his tail. They were both pushing so I went onto the inside of Turn 14 to get out of the way. It hurts a little bit to have my last qualifying messed up with the performance loss due to the floor damage, but I just have to go out there and make it right tomorrow. We need to have a good race and make up positions; the car clearly has pace as after the first run in Q1 I was P3, and I thought it was going to be a great session. Everyone is quick, it’s not going to be easy, but hopefully I can make up some ground tomorrow.”
Albon: “We didn’t quite optimise the lap in Qualifying; there was more on the table, so that’s a bit frustrating. It’s such fine margins out there with one tenth having the potential to move us up four or five positions. We obviously focused on the race car more than the Qualifying car due to the grid penalty, so we’ll see if that pays off tomorrow. As a team, we’ve shown a lot of resilience this year, especially over these last few months and it’s been a huge effort from the factory and the trackside team to get the car in a decent place, but we’ve fallen short on upgrades throughout the year, so we’ve been left behind slightly in that midfield battle. We’re putting our focus on the future and will close out the race tomorrow the best we can.”
Here’s how F1 Abu Dhabi GP qualifying panned out
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