The curtain will fall on the 2024 Formulation 1 season on Sunday when the checkered flag flies on the finish of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and for the primary time since Brawn received the title in 2009 a group aside from Mercedes or Purple Bull shall be topped Constructors’ champions.
Heading into Sunday McLaren is in pole place, actually and figuratively. McLaren arrived in Abu Dhabi with a 21-point lead over Ferrari within the title chase, and on Saturday they locked out the entrance row throughout qualifying. Lando Norris begins up entrance, with Oscar Piastri alongside him in P2.
As for Ferrari, Charles Leclerc shall be in the back of the grid due to a ten-place grid penalty incurred when the group put in a brand new Vitality Retailer (ES) on his SF-24, another than the 2 allowed for annually beneath the principles. Leclerc was eradicated in Q2 Saturday in P14 and is slated to begin nineteenth, barring extra penalties.
As for Carlos Sainz Jr., he’ll begin proper behind the McLarens, as he certified third on Saturday. That offers Ferrari a combating likelihood on the entrance, however Sainz admitted after qualifying that the group faces “mission unattainable” relating to the Constructors’ Championship.
“Yeah, I feel it was already extraordinarily troublesome. It was, like I mentioned, a little bit of a mission unattainable already earlier than the weekend began. Then we arrived to FP1 and Charles’ battery died earlier than working and the grid penalty clearly was an enormous shock, an enormous blow. On high of that, you get the Q2 scenario for Charles,” mentioned Leclerc within the FIA Press Convention after qualifying. “It simply makes issues clearly much more troublesome. However on the identical time, It is rather seemingly that even in an ideal weekend the place we each nail laps in Q3 and we even struggle for the win, these two guys are nonetheless up there. So it was at all times going to be troublesome.
“It’s simply made our life much more troublesome. However till the chequered flag comes down tomorrow, you realize, something can occur. And I’m going to maintain combating for no matter comes. And I’m certain Charles from the again will push flat out to get each single level accessible and see what occurs with the McLarens.”
Sainz additionally made an emotional attraction concerning the Constructors’ Championship basically, outlining simply how essential that title is to every F1 group.
“I feel each fan or each journalist or possibly each particular person that isn’t absolutely or doesn’t absolutely purchase the Constructors’ Championship, the second you go to a Formulation 1 manufacturing unit, you perceive why it exists and why it’s so essential,” started Sainz. “As a result of once you go to a Formulation 1 manufacturing unit and also you see greater than a thousand folks working for simply us drivers to take the automotive and make it carry out.
“We’re simply the final little bit of the chain that there’s behind all these groups and each single man from the group counts in that distinction and it’s the drivers’ job and group principal’s job and the principle engineers’ job to make these folks really feel prefer it counts,” continued the Ferrari driver. “So each single one could make a hundredth of a distinction within the group and people hundredths add as much as the final tenth that possibly made McLaren faster at the moment and that’s the place all that final distinction is and why it’s so essential.”
Sainz then talked concerning the state of play in F1, with probably the most aggressive season in latest reminiscence coming to an in depth.
“On high of that, I feel Formulation 1 is in house proper now, with a stage enjoying discipline between driver being essential, but additionally the group. I feel groups are given extra equal alternative to struggle,” added Sainz. “And it’s not solely all about funds. It’s the folks, it’s the infrastructure that you could have, that you could obtain. And you’ll see it with McLaren, you possibly can see it with the highest 4 groups proper now, we’re all inside a few tenths of each other, and it makes the Drivers’ Championship extra honest as a result of the driving force could make extra of a distinction, but additionally the Constructors’ Championship extra honest.”
Sainz has an opportunity to attain that dream in his ultimate race with Ferrari earlier than shifting to Williams for subsequent season, even whether it is “mission unattainable.”
