The curtain will fall on the 2024 Components 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 workforce apart from Mercedes or Crimson Bull might 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 might be behind the grid because of a ten-place grid penalty incurred when the workforce put in a brand new Vitality Retailer (ES) on his SF-24, yet another than the 2 allowed for annually underneath the foundations. Leclerc was eradicated in Q2 Saturday in P14 and is slated to begin nineteenth, barring further penalties.
As for Carlos Sainz Jr., he’ll begin proper behind the McLarens, as he certified third on Saturday. That provides Ferrari a preventing probability on the entrance, however Sainz admitted after qualifying that the workforce faces “mission unattainable” on the subject of the Constructors’ Championship.
“Yeah, I believe it was already extraordinarily tough. 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 prime 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 tough. However on the similar time, It is extremely 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 all the time going to be tough.
“It’s simply made our life much more tough. However till the chequered flag comes down tomorrow, you realize, something can occur. And I’m going to maintain preventing for no matter comes. And I’m positive 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 generally, outlining simply how vital that title is to every F1 workforce.
“I believe each fan or each journalist or perhaps each individual that’s not absolutely or doesn’t absolutely purchase the Constructors’ Championship, the second you go to a Components 1 manufacturing facility, you perceive why it exists and why it’s so vital,” started Sainz. “As a result of while you go to a Components 1 manufacturing facility 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 workforce counts in that distinction and it’s the drivers’ job and workforce principal’s job and the primary 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 workforce and people hundredths add as much as the final tenth that perhaps made McLaren faster as we speak and that’s the place all that final distinction is and why it’s so vital.”
Sainz then talked concerning the state of play in F1, with essentially the most aggressive season in current reminiscence coming to an in depth.
“On prime of that, I believe Components 1 is in a very good area proper now, with a stage taking part in discipline between driver being vital, but additionally the workforce. I believe groups are given extra equal alternative to struggle,” added Sainz. “And it’s not solely all about finances. It’s the folks, it’s the infrastructure you can have, you can 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 realize that dream in his closing race with Ferrari earlier than shifting to Williams for subsequent season, even whether it is “mission unattainable.”
