This season’s Formula One title fight may be long over but for Mercedes and Ferrari a battle for pride and no little prize money lends this weekend’s finale at Abu Dhabi a dramatic tension that had largely drained from the championship after Max Verstappen left the field in his wake.
Doubtless Red Bull’s Verstappen, who has already secured the drivers’ title, will canter away to another victory at the Yas Marina Circuit. There is no reason to suppose the dominance he has displayed all season should not close with his 19th win from 22 races, a record so strong it may never be broken.
Behind him however the competition the sport has lacked at the very front of the grid is reaching what should be an enthralling climax. While Red Bull have long since secured the team title, Mercedes and Ferrari, second and third in the constructors’ championship, go into the meeting separated by only four points after 21 races – an incredibly tight margin and the sort of nip-and-tuck fight F1 had dreamed of when imposing the new regulations in 2022 before Red Bull turned up and Adrian Newey’s singularly brilliant interpretation of them left the rest of the field as also-rans.
The battle for second is not where either team want to be but it lends Abu Dhabi, a soulless and singularly average track at which to hold the season finale, weight that would be otherwise missing from this dead rubber in the desert.
Four drivers – Lewis Hamilton and George Russell for Mercedes, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz for Ferrari – will all be going at it with every point, including even the bonus for fastest lap, potentially crucial.
The strategy calls are likely to be as tense as in any title decider. For all that, as Ron Dennis noted, second place is “the first of the losers”, there is still much to fight for. The difference in payout from F1’s estimated $1bn (£800m) constructors’ prize fund between second and third is believed to be as much as $10m, from $131m to around $121m which no team would sniff at, not least when they need every penny to be trying to bridge the gap to Red Bull for next year.
The drivers understand this. Hamilton made it clear the battle for second in the constructors’ championship was more important to him than where he finished in the drivers’ championship once the title was gone and he confirmed third place in Las Vegas. His views have been echoed by Russell, Leclerc and Sainz.
Moreover this fight is one that has ebbed and flowed. Mercedes had started slowly with both they and Ferrari outpaced by Aston Martin, who were out of the blocks with alacrity, a pace they could not sustain as the season progressed.
As Mercedes came to better know their car they overtook Aston for second at the Spanish Grand Prix and while Ferrari struggled, particularly with excessive tyre wear, they fell back, 56 points behind by the Hungarian GP in July. Yet the Scuderia turned it around and have come back strongly, including Sainz taking the only non-Red Bull win of the season in Singapore.
Theyhave reeled in Mercedes to set up this decider and quite who will have the advantage at Yas Marina remains tantalisingly difficult to nail down. Ferrari had great pace in the last round at Las Vegas but that will not necessarily translate to Abu Dhabi. Yet they will still likely have an edge. They will enjoy the straight line speed advantage in the first half of the lap and their car, with strong traction out of the slow corners all season, will punch out of the turn five hairpin and the chicane at six and seven for example.
Yet Mercedes should be quick in the second half of the lap, with the medium speed corners where their car is stronger. Indeed it may yet come down to tyre wear, with both teams still struggling to predict exactly how their car will perform at any given circuit, as they have such narrow operating windows.
After practice Hamilton conceded qualifying might be vital. “It was not the greatest of days. We have had difficult qualifying sessions this year,” he said. “The work tomorrow is to try and get into Q3 but it is going to be close.”
It is far from a grand, title-deciding finale but as the teams lick their wounds and head into the winter to prepare for a tilt at Red Bull next year, it might yet deliver some fireworks at the last.
Early indications were that there was little to choose between them. Russell topped first practice, while in the second session Sainz crashed out at turn three. When running resumed with time limited Leclerc was on top with Russell and Hamilton in sixth and eighth.
