Formula One Vault

This Grand Prix – Abu Dhabi (08/12/2024)

General News

The FIA wants to change its rules to limit the ways its leadership can be held to account for bad governance. The change to its statutes governing the audit and ethics committees has been circulated to member clubs to be approved at a vote of the FIA general assembly on 13 December.

These would ensure that any ethics complaints were overseen by the FIA president and president of its senate, rather than the senate itself. And they would remove the power of the audit committee to investigate financial issues independently.

The proposals come after a year in which the ethics and audit committees investigated a number of allegations about the conduct of FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem. As well as an ongoing row with F1 drivers about Ben Sulayem’s interference, he has been investigated about the way his office has been run, the establishment of a $1.5m “president’s fund” to pay member clubs, which vote for the FIA president. Neither of these were progressed. And two separate allegations that Ben Sulayem interfered in the operations of Grands Prix in 2023, which were dismissed.

The man in charge of the investigation Paolo Basri was sacked last month, the latest in a string of departures including CEO Natalie Robyn who raising questions about the general governance of the organisation and its professional practices, head of the audit committee Bertrand Badre, audit committee member Tom Purves.

Documents seen by BBC News, remove the ability of the compliance officer to report to the audit committee and remove the audit committee’s ability to investigate any matter unless asked by the president of the senate.

The senate president is appointed by the FIA president, this would effectively remove the independence of the committee making it difficult to investigate and punish wrongdoing. The senate, which no longer has to be sent any ethics report

German prosecutors have charged three people including members of Micheal Schumacher’s security team of blackmail and stealing of 1,500 photos and two hundred videos. The seven-time champion has not been seen in public since a skiing accident in Grenoble in December 2013.

It is alleged Fritsche hatched a plot with his son Daniel Lins, 30, a computer expert, and a friend, nightclub bouncer Yilmaz Tozturkan, 53, to threaten to release the material onto the dark web if their ransom was not paid.

The prosecution alleges the information was taken from the Schumacher’s family home in Switzerland on four USB sticks. A telephone call from Tozturkan on June 3 allegedly alerted the family to the stolen material, with proof then sent to the family via email. Another email followed on June 11 allegedly including four images and the ransom demands.

Earlier in the year the Schumachers won damages of £200,000 following a magazines claim that an AI-generated interview was actually an exclusive with the seven-time champion.

Weekend Recap

FP1 was topped by Charles Leclerc with a a 24.321 on the soft tyres which put him two-tenths faster than Lando Norris, but after a battery change will take a ten-place grid penalty. He was fastest despite losing much of the first half of the session because of the battery issue, but was soon up to pace with him going fastest. Lewis Hamilton was third the seven-time champion was a quarter of a second behind Norris and ahead of teammate George Russell by just under half a second.

FP2 was the more important session given this is a twilight race, Norris topped the times with a 23.517 going over two-tenths faster than his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri. The team looked strong with their biggest rivals Ferrari six-tenths off with Carlos Sainz in fourth over a tenth behind Nico Hulkenberg

Qualifying saw McLaren’s pace continue Norris beating his teammate Piastri by two-tenths to take pole ahead of Sainz. Ferrari only managed to get one car into Q3 and was given an added blow, a ten place grid penalty for Leclerc because of a engine change dropping him to nineteenth. Hulkenberg had a brilliant qualifying putting his Haas fourth seven hundredths behind Sainz, his best qualifying since Sao Paulo in 2010 and the teams best of the season

Norris has beaten both Ferraris to clinch McLaren the constructor’s championship for the first time in twenty-six years with a five-second victory. The Englishman drove a beautiful race to finish comfortably ahead despite his teammate Piastri was taken out of the battle for victory following a collision with Max Verstappen which dropped him to last.

Norris appeared unphased by the drama and the added pressure on his shoulders knowing that he now needed victory to seal the constructors, and soon started pulling away from the two Ferrari’s boldly throwing down a statement for 2025 to go after the drivers’ championship.

Leclerc had a brilliant race as he recovered from nineteenth to finish third after some brilliant overtakes early on trying to do his bit to try and help Ferrari claim the constructors. But Ferrari never looked to have the pace to challenge Norris and deny McLaren the constructors, as well as confirming Norris as runner-up in the championship and sealing the Hawthorn Memorial Trophy as the highest British or Commonwealth driver in the championship.

Red Bull

Reports and rumours suggest that Red Bull has been given an ultimate by the team, resign or be sacked. Following last weekend’s race in Lusail, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko for the first time clearly gave the impression that the decision had at least then been as good as made if they alone could make it.

Following the race in Qatar, Horner gave the impression that he wanted the Mexican to go and gave non-commital statements about Perez’s future. He told Sky Sport, “We will fully support him until the chequered flag drops in Abu Dhabi. Whatever he decides after that is ultimately his decision. He’s old enough and wise enough to draw his own conclusions. But there’s still one race to go. Now let’s get Abu Dhabi out of the way and then we’ll see where we stand.”

2024 despite winning the drivers championship has seen Red Bull embroiled in civil war sparked by accusations which were dismissed by the parent company about Horner’s behaviour. However since the resignation of Adrain Newey and the summer the in-fighting between Horner, Red Bull and Jos Verstappen has appeared to stopped.

The fact that Perez himself is suddenly supposed to be the one to make the decision is new. So what if the 34-year-old insists on his contract for 2025 and absolutely wants to continue? This raises questions and sounds a bit as if Perez had already been advised by Red Bull to pull the plug himself. On Sunday before the race, Horner, Marko and Perez were photographed in a three-way conversation in which it may have already been clearly stated that Red Bull does not want to continue with him.

The questions that still need to be answered are obvious: How much compensation would Perez like to sign a termination agreement and not sit in the race cockpit in 2025? Red Bull would probably prefer him to accept the financial offer on the table in the next few days. Then he would be given a worthy farewell in Abu Dhabi with a big send-off.

Marko explained to Viaplay, “There is a meeting Monday after Abu Dhabi and there, all the major people are there, all of the shareholders, and there a decision will be done. We always – or most of the time – brought our own drivers through the Red Bull programme and I think it’s a philosophical decision: do we stick to that? And what I got from the shareholders it will be in this direction.”

A statement that confirms nothing, but suggests the following: the decision on Perez’s successor will be made between Tsunoda and Lawson. And because Horner in particular is said not to be convinced that Tsunoda is the right man for Red Bull Racing, it seems as if Lawson is the most likely candidate as things stand.

But Perez appeared defiant ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Thursday as he made clear he saw his future at Red Bull. Perez said on Thursday, “Nothing has changed since before in terms of what I’ve said for the entire year. I got a contract for next year and I will be driving for Red Bull next year.”

Asked if he was 100% sure that would be the case, Perez replied: “I already said, mate, nothing further to add. I have a contract for next year so nothing further to add.” Perez said that he was aware of the rumours that his place was under threat in Monday’s meeting, but reckoned the situation was unchanged within the team.

He added, “To be honest I haven’t been much into it for sure.”

Max Verstappen and his partner Kelly Piquet have announced they are having their first child together. In a joint post on Instagram, they said “Mini Verstappen-Piquet on the way. We couldn’t be happier with our little miracle.”

Piquet his the daughter of three-time champion Nelson Piquet Sr and has a daughter from her previous relationship with Daniil Kvyat. Verstappen has already made it clear that he doesn’t talk about motorsports with his father-in-law, following his homophobic and racist remarks in 2021 about Lewis Hamilton which saw his pass revoked by F1. A court awarded Hamilton £750,000 in damages in 2023. Announcing their personal news via social media was an unusual step for Verstappen and Kelly.

In the hour following that announcement, Verstappen announced a new line of baby & toddler merchandise and Christmas decorations. Calling it a “unique line of Max Verstappen baby items.”

Speaking to the press on Friday, he was looking forward to parenthood, “I’m already kind of a bonus dad,” he said, referring to Piquet’s daughter Penelope. “But I’m still very excited for sure.”

Well, Friday started joyously for the Dutchman, but on track it was a very different story with him saying even if Red Bull found significant improvements overnight he doubted they could challenge McLaren. Verstappen could only manage P16 in FP2 after sitting out FP1, during which he said “It’s bad. It’s really my problem with the car. The front axle is just not working.”

Red Bull will be hoping to replicate their feat in Qatar, where they transformed a car that was arguably fifth-fastest in the sprint into a race-winning contender on Sunday. Speaking after the session in Abu Dhabi, Verstappen said: “Just not a very good balance, to be honest. Just no connected balance from entry to mid-corner, and that makes it difficult to push. That’s something we have to work on overnight.”

Perez also struggled in FP2 but he was P14 ahead of Verstappen by four hundredths but still a second off the team’s main rival McLaren. The Mexican added, “It’s bad. It’s really my problem with the car. The front axle is just not working.”

Red Bull will be hoping to replicate their feat in Qatar, where they transformed a car that was arguably fifth-fastest in the sprint into a race-winning contender on Sunday.

Speaking after the session in Abu Dhabi, Verstappen said: “Just not a very good balance, to be honest. Just no connected balance from entry to mid-corner, and that makes it difficult to push. That’s something we have to work on overnight.

Following qualifying where Verstappen only was P5 after a slide on his final run in Q3 he said that he expects McLaren to be “very hard to beat.” After looking fast in the initial stages of Q3, Verstappen put his Red Bull into provisional pole on the first runs, but en route suffered quite a moment at the last turn, resulting in him very nearly losing the car.

Asked later on for his feelings on the session, the 27-year-old said: “How do I feel? In a way relieved, because it’s the final qualifying of the year! The qualifying itself, I think it was quite decent but you never really had a good [comparison] because many people kept on aborting on their new tyres, so every time when I was P1 people were on scrubbed [tyres] and I don’t think that, of course, gave a fair performance assessment, even though I think even if I didn’t drop it in the last corner I think I could have fought for second, but that’s not how it works in Formula 1.”

Verstappen said that the result highlighted the season, when the car works it works but its very difficult to make work. Explaining he was not happy with the balance of the car, which he described as peaky.

Sergio Perez will start from P10. It was an eventful start to the session for the Mexican, who at one stage went quickest before seeing his lap time deleted for exceeding track limits – only for it to then be reinstated again.

Despite regaining the time and going on to progress to Q3, Perez was left to rue the impact of the incident. He explained after qualifying, “It was a little bit of a shame that we ended up losing that lap because that meant that we had to put an extra set of tyres [on], and that was a little bit of a compromise that we had to do,”.

Verstappen has apologised to Piastri following their opening lap collision, the Dutchman tried to go up the inside of Piastri at the start of the season finale but instead crashed into the Australian, who dropped to the back as a result. It could have had a huge impact on the constructors’ championship but, ultimately, McLaren still ended its 26-year wait for a teams’ title as Lando Norris won and Piastri recovered to tenth.

Verstappen said over team radio that the incident was “unlucky” but revealed he had said sorry to Piastri after the race.

He said, “My launch was good and then I tried to grab the inside and I quickly realised, once I committed to it, that the gap was closing and I wanted to try and get out of it, because I didn’t want to naturally, of course, crash with Oscar.”

“But unfortunately, we still clipped each other, but I already apologised to Oscar, it is not what you want to happen, and especially not with him. He’s a great guy but it happened, and it is a bit unfortunate. The thing was that, when you’re in that position, you’re focusing on the car ahead…you commit. When you start first or second, you never really look behind.”

Verstappen also labelled the stewards “idiots” via team radio for handing him a 10-second penalty for causing the collision. He continued to question the decision when asked about it after the race, where he eventually finished sixth.

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton went into his final race with the team saying it was unlikely to be the positive send-off he and the team would have wanted. That comes at the end of a season of frustration, with Hamilton comprehensively out-performed in qualifying by team-mate George Russell. Two wins at Silverstone and Spa – his first for two and a half years – were highs, but have done little to lift his general mood.

Hamilton, who is moving to Ferrari in 2025, told BBC News, “I don’t think it will end on a high. It’ll end. What’s important is we turn up and give it our best shot.”

Hamilton has had a difficult final season with Mercedes, and it’s only become more so as it has wound to its close. Both Hamilton and Mercedes say a low-key end to their partnership will not detract from everything they have achieved together.

CEO and Team principal, Toto Wolff said: “When he took the decision to go, we knew it could be a bumpy year ahead. It’s normal. He knows he will go somewhere else. We know our future lies somewhere else. And to go through the ups and downs and still keep it together is something we have achieved.”

“He wears his heart on his sleeve and you express your emotions and that is absolutely allowed. Nothing is going to take away 12 incredible years. That will be in the memory, rather than a season or races that were particularly bad.”

Following practice, the seven-time champion sounded more positive saying Mercedes were hopefully “in the mix”. Hamilton was fifth in FP2 two hundredths behind Carlos Sainz and ahead of Charles Leclerc by three hundredths, however, was six-tenths off Norris who topped the session. As his twelve seasons with Mercedes came to an end, Hamilton was pleased to get his swansong off to a positive start.

He said, “It felt better today. It’s not been such a bad day. Very surreal and I’ve just tried to be as present as I can be today and just be enjoying every moment from arriving to seeing the engineers and just really like taking moments and capturing them as much as I can. Then to getting ready and getting in the car… and I’ve really enjoyed the day. I’ve really enjoyed driving the car today, working with the guys in the garage and the engineers.”

Hamilton says their long run pace didn’t look bad and I agree though single lap pace is going to be more challenging, that kind of been the pattern throughout the last three years. The Englishman will want to avoid a repeat of Sao Paulo 2012 his final race for McLaren, he retired from pole after being hit by Nico Hulkenberg breaking his suspension.

Russell, who continued his feud with Verstappen following the dramas in Qatar, said he had been running experimental set-ups on the W15 on Friday. That could explain why he was thirteenth nearly half a second off in FP2.

He said, “We’re trying a lot of things in preparation for next year. Obviously, this is our last opportunity and we wanted to go, let’s say, a little bit more radical with some of the set-up options to see if there is anything more we can learn. So hoping [Saturday] will be a bit more of a normal day and go from there.”

But Russell expected McLaren to be in a ‘league of their own,’ as well as Ferrari and Verstappen to be in the mix.

His final qualifying didn’t get any for Hamilton as he was knocked out in Q1 after a bollard became lodged under his car, with him telling BBC News “You couldn’t make it up”. The seven-time world champion was on his final effort to put in a lap that would get him through to Q2 when he came upon a slow Kevin Magnussen in the Haas.

The Dane, aware Hamilton was coming up behind him in the hotel section, moved off the track and behind the kerbs to try not to block the Mercedes. However, in doing so, Magnussen struck the bollard that is on the inside apex, flinging it across the track just as Hamilton arrived.

With no time to react, Hamilton ran over the bollard, and it got trapped underneath his car as he attempted to finish the lap and was ultimately only eighteenth fastest. A clearly frustrated Hamilton told the media “It’s just my luck, but it’s okay. You know, I tried, we tried so hard with the set-up, we got the car in a great place, and it was looking good in FP3.”

“So I was really thinking maybe a podium is possible this weekend and yeah, then timing was not optimised for the session. I was the last one on the track and obviously I ended up behind one of the Alpines right in the end so I just ran out of time. I don’t have any emotions. I’m pretty chill. We had this unfortunate session and got the bollard under the car.”

Magnussen explained the situation when asked about the bollard incident by Motorsport.com: “Lewis was coming very close behind Bottas, I think. There was someone coming and I let him pass, 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.”

Ferrari

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur says he has ‘zero concerns’ about Hamilton’s speed, despite the difficult end to the season the seven-time champion has had. This season, Hamilton has struggled to match teammate George Russell.

he seven-time champion also had a torrid time at the Qatar Grand Prix as he came home 12th after a jump start, a puncture and a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pitlane. Hamilton accepts that things are not working, for reasons that he cannot explain, as he admitted that the performance is simply not there at the moment.

On Friday in Qatar, he raised eyebrows when he said: “I’m definitely not fast anymore.”

But while things are not clicking with Mercedes right now, his future employer Ferrari does not see anything to be alarmed about. Vassuer a long-time friend and mastermind of his 2006 GP2, now F2, title, believes that his charge from tenth to second in Vegas shows how good he still is.

The Frenchman told Motorsport.com, “Not at all. Have a look at the 50 laps that he did in Vegas. Starting P10, finishing on the gearbox of Russell, I’m not worried at all.”

It was a tough start to the weekend for the team going into qualifying Charles Leclerc was given a ten-place grid penalty for a battery change, he was then knocked out in Q2 in thirteenth dropping him to nineteenth one place ahead of x. His fastest lap was deleted for track limits.

Despite the blow in the battle with McLaren, Leclerc was still keeping faith, telling the press after qualifying “I believe in miracles. Sometimes again, it makes our life very difficult, that’s for sure.”

Adding, “With the 10-place grid 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’ll believe in it until the very last lap – everything can happen. The race pace was okay, but McLaren seemed to be a lot stronger,” he added.

“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.”

Sainz, who will race for the final time for Ferrari before he is replaced by Lewis Hamilton next season, will be hoping to push the McLaren duo from the very start on Sunday afternoon.

he said, “I think we’ve made some good progress through the weekend. I think McLaren have showed all weekend that they’re a bit of a step ahead compared to everyone, really. We were just there behind, two or three tenths off. When it came to Q1 and Q2 it looked like we were getting a bit closer. I put together some really good laps in Q1 and Q2 but then in Q3, when they put everything together, they still had this little advantage over us.

“Anyway, still a race to do tomorrow, and we will give it everything to see if we can win that race and give ourselves the best chance.”

Following the race Sainz and Leclerc admitted they were hurting after McLaren took the constructors by fourteen points. It was a brilliant effort with Leclerc recovering from nineteenth finishing twenty-six seconds behind his out-going teammate.

Sainz said, “Obviously, it is a bit of a bittersweet feeling, in the end. P2 I think was the maximum we could do today, given the pace of Lando in the McLaren. Yeah. I gave it everything, especially the first stint it looked like, we could hang on to them. Then as soon as we put the hard tyres, they just seemed to be that one or two tenths quicker per lap, like we’ve seen all weekend, and they just got a bit out of out of reach.”

“But yeah, congratulations, first of all, to McLaren. They deserved this championship. They’ve been rock solid in the last two-thirds of the championship, and they’ve been incredible from our side, I think we can be proud of the effort and the championship we put together. It’s been a tough year, but definitely a year where we need to be proud of and hopefully be back here soon.”

All weekend Leclerc knew he was on the back foot before coming from nineteenth to finish third twenty six seconds behind Sainz. Ferrari got the strategy right coming through the field the long opening stint on top of going up to eighth on the opening lap then being first to stop going to the hard tyres.

He added, “I knew I had to be very aggressive. So I knew that in lap one I had to take all the risks possible in order to gain as many places as possible to then be in a good position for the rest of the race, which was achieved. But then, unfortunately, we were just starting too far back to do anything better than what we’ve done today. I think we’ve done the maximum.”

McLaren

Despite Lando Norris leading his teammate Oscar Piastri by an aquater of a second in FP2, the Englishman warned that the pace “looked better than it is” and is anticipating a “tough fight” in Saturday’s qualifying. Norris was also second in FP1 two tenths behind Charles Leclerc.

While he acknowledged that it had been a positive Friday, Norris also warned that McLaren’s rivals maybe even closer to them during the rest of the weekend. He said, “It was a good day, yeah. [The] car’s been feeling good the whole day, so [it] continued our pace out of Qatar and, yeah, it feels strong. I think we have some things to improve on in both low and high fuel, more so the high fuel.”

“Totally looks probably better than it is, I don’t think the others turned up their engines yet, so it might look glorious for now but I think we’re still going to have a tough fight tomorrow.” I understand that bit of warning and the need for them to unlock more from the car because we have seen how tight and challenging it has been at the front small things make a huge difference.

It will go down to how much teams can push and get out of the car in qualifying tomorrow and Piastri was pleased with P2 after missing FP1. When asked about asked how the car felt, Piastri said, “I think pretty positive. I think for me obviously I just did FP2, and I was pretty happy with the car straightaway, and the pace we’re very happy with. Hopefully we can keep that into tomorrow. I think the others will probably find a bit of a step, I would imagine, but if we can keep that kind of advantage we’d be pretty happy.”

It was a brilliant Saturday with Norris and Piastri locking out the front row and a difficult evening for Ferrari as the Englishman took his eighth pole of the season tied with Verstappen. Here is what Norris said “A perfect day for us. Probably a little bit tougher than we were hoping for – we’ve been very quick all weekend so we’re pleased with a one-two, but it was just a bit trickier than what we would have liked. My lap in the end was strong, and just how we wanted to end today.”

I think we all expected a close qualifying but McLaren on reflection I feel during the second half of the year have pulled it out the bag when it matter. But going into the race Norris suggested they would play it safe while wanting to do it in style. Norris out-qualifyied Piastri by two-tenths as he was only two hundredths faster than Sainz.

Piastri added, “A great result for the team so happy with that. The last lap, I wish I could have had it again, but P2 is still a good spot and obviously for the team, first and second is the dream at the moment.”

Following his fourth victory of the season, Norris declared he was “so proud” as the team took their first constructors since 1998. Despite the opening lap drama where Piastri was spun round by Verstappen, nothing phased the Englishman who converted pole into a fourth career win.

He said, “The team have done an amazing job this year to come from where we were at the beginning. I’m so proud of everyone – it’s been a lovely journey. And to end the season like this is perfect, so just a congrats and big thank you to everyone in McLaren, everyone in Papaya, everyone who supported us this year because it’s been a tough one. For us to win a constructors’ after 26 years is pretty special.”

Its an incredible turn around in five years from the back to champions again they have worked incredibly hard given where they were fighting to just be in the points. But he laid down the target of the drivers championship for 2025, Norris ends the season sixty-three points off Verstappen but clinches the Hawthorn Memorial Trophy beating Piastri by eighty-two points from Piastri.

Piastri, meanwhile, ended up recovering to P10 after his first-lap issues – and a subsequent ten-second penalty for colliding with Williams’ Franco Colapinto – meaning McLaren finished the year fourteen points clear of Ferrari.

Alpine

Going into his debut weekend Jack Doohan called it an amazing opportunity to make an earlier-than-anticipated F1 race debut with Alpine, stepping up from his reserve driver role to replace the departing Esteban Ocon in a sudden driver switch.

On Monday it was announced that Ocon would be replaced for the final race as part of a deal to allowing him to join Haas for next week’s test. Dohan switched from Red Bull to Alpine in 2023 when he finished third in F2 and was appointed as the team’s reserve driver this year, rather than racing he took a year out in 2024

Dohan said about his conversation with the team’s Executive Advisor. “To be honest he told me that I’d be racing. Fairly simple – it’s very simple with Flavio – and he told me to be ready. There’s no real expectation. It’s to build it up over Friday, FP2 is new territory for me, so really just to progress through Friday and continue that progression. To finish the race and just to learn as much as possible before 2025.”

“I’m super grateful to [Renault CEO] Luca de Meo, Flavio and Oli [Oakes] for this opportunity, the whole Alpine Academy, the TPC test team who’ve been preparing me for a long, long time and I’ve been a part of the programme since the end of 2021. To finally be the first Academy driver to race, and to make my debut this year ahead of next, is amazing.”

Alpine Academy driver Abbi Pulling was crowned 2024 F1 Academy champion for a second time in a week after she took pole position for all three races in Abu Dhabi. Pulling initially was crowned champion last Saturday but the cancelled second race in Qatar was replaced with an extra race in Abu Dhabi, which meant there were two more Qualifying points on offer for the third race.

Mathematically, it gave Pin an opportunity to win the title but she needed to win each of the three races with fastest lap and take all three pole positions. The 21-year-old had the best fastest lap, second fastest lap and third fastest lap in Qualifying.

She told Sky Sports, “It has been a strange week but at the end of the day I know what I’m capable of and I knew I was going to get enough points to be in that position again. What happened, happened. I can’t control that. But it was a really nice 30 minutes (Qualifying). At one point I was really confident in Qualifying, but I dug deep and it feels great.”

Alpine strong finish to the season continued as Pierre Gasly finished seventh allowing them to retain sixth in the constructors.

He then benefitted from Nico Hulkenberg receiving a three-place grid penalty after qualifying, which promoted him to P5 on the starting grid – while he lost out to the superior pace of Red Bull and Mercedes, he crossed the line in seventh, three seconds ahead of the Haas driver.

Gasly said after the race. “We had one target coming to Abu Dhabi – it was to secure that sixth in the constructors’. Our target was achieved. There was also the drivers’ championship with Nico where we were within a point coming into the last race, so we knew whoever beat the other would get that 10th spot in the championship which I managed to get in the end.”

“Kept our nose clean the entire season for no damage so the three targets were completed! I’m just very pleased to see the evolution and how the car’s developed – [it] really shows all the work, and the good work the team has done throughout the whole season. It gives me confidence for next season.”

They have had a brilliant turn around and only really came into the fight over the final six races after a very turbulent season, but it proves you can turn it around. Gasly will want to continue this into 2026

Haas

Following Haas’s best qualifying of the season Nico Hulkenberg was been hit with a three-place grid drop for failing to follow the race director’s instructions by overtaking two cars on the pit exit road. The Haas driver had qualified in P4, but started seventh on the grid behind Pierre Gasly and George Russell.

In a document published by the FIA, the stewards explained: “The driver did not dispute during the hearing that he did not follow the Race Director’s instructions, but stated that he had no other option but to breach the rules in order to get a lap in.”

“Whilst the Stewards acknowledge that the position of the team’s garages limits their options to send the cars out on track, this can never be used as an excuse to breach any regulations.”

The German driver previously admitted just after qualifying that he was surprised by his performance, saying: “I was expecting a top-10 result for sure because that’s where we’ve been all weekend, pretty session every much – so I knew that was a must do. But P4 is definitely more than what I expected and hoped for. [It was a] very strong session, which goes down to a strong performing car and good team effort.”

Haas went into the race But P4 is definitely more than what I expected and hoped for. [It was a] very strong session, which goes down to a strong performing car and good team effort.

Results Summary

Championship Standings

This Grand Prix will be back the weekend of 14 – 16 March, we will be back with the review in two weeks time but thanks for being with us for 2024 see you in Bahrain for testing