Lando Norris along with Andrea Stella reflect on just how F1 Abu Dhabi GP worked out in title battle, as Carlos Sainz, Charles Leclerc and Frederic Vasseur add on.
It was not the beginning to F1 Abu Dhabi GP that McLaren desired, particularly when Max Verstappen obtained Oscar Piastri, that better obtained a fine for strikingFranco Colapinto The Australian was on the backfoot from very early on, while colleague Norris took fee at the front of the area.
He did have Ferrari’s Sainz on his tail all-through, while colleague Leclerc leapt from 19th to 8th on Lap 1 and depended on 3rd by the end of the very first job, also going beyond Mercedes’George Russell Despite the worthy initiative, it looked penalty for McLaren at the front.
Norris had a small scare around the pit quit when Sainz obtained on him, once on the difficult substance, the Brit took care of to squeeze out a void. While they had backmarkers, that was not the concern for Stella as a lot a late security auto treatment which was playing on their minds.
That is why they were rushing Piastri to end up nine at the very least, which would certainly have secured their title also when it comes to Norris shedding toSainz The McLaren, however, did not such as the threat taken by Verstappen at the beginning which obtained the Australian and placed unnecessary stress on the Woking- based group.
Vasseur broadened on the fine used up by Leclerc where prior to the battery failing, they went to a threat currently and had no option however to alter ultimately. They really did not alter their method as they did not desire any type of unnecessary stress on themselves.
How race worked out–
Norris: “Yeah, I suggest, I’m really, really satisfied. Just as I make sure every person in the group is. Today was an extremely wedding for everyone. It was ours to shed today and I make sure at specific minutes individuals assumed that it was nearby from being shed. You recognize, 2 Ferraris up there and Charles doing a fantastic task to return to the platform. Oscar was very unfortunate. He obtained gotten in Turn 1. So momentarily, my heart resembled, ‘oh God, it’ s not looking as most likely’. But if I simply maintained my head down and maintained concentrated, I understood I might supply and do what I reached do. That’s that, however the larger photo of us winning a champion for the very first time in 26 years, you would not have actually assumed that when you claim the name McLaren.
“It feels wrong to say that they’ve not won a championship in 26 years. But for me to be part of that, for Oscar to be part of it, is something we’re incredibly proud of. And delivering that for the team has put the biggest smile as possible on everyone’s face. This is the biggest reward you can give back to everyone who designs the car, builds the car, gets the partners. Everyone has played such a big part, so just proud. Proud is my biggest thing. Of course, I’m happy I finished the season this way, but I’m way more happy for the team than I am for myself.”
Sainz: “Yeah, clearly a little bit of combined sensations, I’m not mosting likely to exist. I believe most of us entered this race attempting to win the Constructors’ Championship and inevitably we did handle to do it. McLaren have actually assembled an extremely solid weekend break. Lando hasn’t place a foot incorrect all race and all weekend break. And ultimately, congratulations to them since they deserve it. On my side, I attempted to do every little thing I might to maintain available of McLaren. Before the race we understood that McLaren could have 1 or 2 tenths of rate on us which sufficed, you recognize, to draw a little bit of a void prior to the pit quits or throughout the race to have a little bit of a barrier and not to really feel excessive stress. I believe I had an extremely solid initially job, took care of to maintain them available and within stress margins, particularly when I was informed Charles was can be found in a great return.
“Oscar had obviously that incident in lap one, I thought, we might have a bit of a chance, but then little by little it started to fade. When we put on the Hard tyres, like we’ve seen in many cases this year, the McLaren upped the pace a bit, turn up the pace a bit, and they started pulling away two, three tenths per lap, and that was enough for them to have that safety margin and bring it home. And from our side, I think we did everything we could. Both Charles and I have given absolutely everything this weekend. It hasn’t been an easy weekend for me, obviously, knowing it was the last one. But I did the best I could to stay focused and to do the maximum that the car could do today, I think.”
Leclerc: “No, not truly. I suggest, once more, I’m, naturally, truly satisfied regarding the race. But the dissatisfaction is a lot larger. You do not win or shed a chairmanship in the last race. But clearly, it mores than the program of the period and after each and every single race. And McLaren has actually simply done a far better task than us. And congratulations to them. But it clearly injures when you reach the last race. You recognize there’s a possibility. It was an extremely hard weekend break, clearly, currently with the fineon Friday It was never ever mosting likely to be simple. But after such a great very first lap, the hopes were high. And yep, we simply came except our desire, which was to win the Constructors’. So it injures. For the beginning, I do not recognize.
“Maybe in Formula 2, I’ve had a few good first laps. But in F1, I think it’s definitely the best first lap I’ve had. If no penalty, I mean, yesterday, I think P4 was probably the best, which would have been P14 or P15. Then you never know what happens by starting P15, we’ll have had won anyway 11 positions? I think it’s a long shot to say that. So yeah, all in all, I think my first lap recovered basically everything that we’ve had since the beginning of the weekend. So I don’t have any regrets.”
Piastri minute–
Norris: “Yeah, I was viewing the television displays and I saw Charles was P8 after lap one, so I was a little anxious! But I understood I simply needed to concentrate on myself, place my head down, and Carlos was never ever far. I believe the largest I obtained the void was to such as 4.2 secs in the very first job, which’s not an extremely great void in my viewpoint. It’s a little bit also near my convenience. So it was still a challenging race, and I make sure there was most likely a great deal much more anxious individuals on the pit wall surface and in the garage, understanding what went to risk and points, and I have actually obtained the adrenaline of the auto and concentrated on that.
“For them, they’re just sitting and watching the screens, and they have a lot more time to think about what can go wrong and all of that. But, yeah, a shame for Oscar. We really wanted to have a one-two today and let McLaren be on top today as a team in a race, but also for a championship, you know, and I felt quite bad for him in the beginning. It wasn’t his fault. But he’s had a great year, so we’ll all celebrate together. I certainly am. And we’ll have some fun.”
Stella: “The first thought I had after checking corner one is that it felt unnecessary. When you have teams fighting for the championship, it’s the pinnacle, it’s the time to harvest the efforts of a season. That felt a little unnecessary, but sometimes adversities give you the opportunity to show your strengths. I think that’s exactly what happened today. First of all because Oscar never gave up and he came back to scoring a point that could have been very important, if not the two points that could have been decisive even in case of a swap between Carlos and Lando.”
Vasseur: “We were focused on ourselves. We knew that we had to do the best job that we could. I don’t want to say that we didn’t pay attention, but the focus was on ourselves and our strategy. If you start to think differently because the others are in front or crashing, you lose the pass. No, no, I didn’t tell something to Carlos [about start around Max]. This is the worst case scenario because if you start the race thinking about this one will take it, this one not and so that you are confusing, you just have to manage the situation. And I think Carlos is professional enough to manage this kind of start when you have Verstappen next to you. But at the end it is like it is. It is not there that we miss something.”
Pit quit scene–
Norris: “Yeah, Carlos claimed it well, truthfully. It was a hard one. I suggest, I understood he most likely pressed a great quantity out of the pit lane to attempt and obtain me. I really did not have the finest in lap. I began to have a hard time a great deal with the tires. And like Carlos claimed, a collection of tires and just how they carry out and just how they function on our auto is all it required to move from them being quicker to myself. I believe in the very first job, Carlos was most likely the quicker driver-car combination. Just the filthy air hurts, also at 3 secs, 2 secs. To do that for an entire job and remain that close goes over. So I understood that he was really quick. But the entire period, we have actually constantly executed much better on more difficult tires. So merely just transforming tires and the feature of a tire transforming produce one group to be the quickest to us to be the quickest.
“And that’s how quickly and easily things can change. So I knew if we just executed a good pit stop, depending on how much he pushed out the box and how much he continued to push, that would decide my strategy, let’s say. Do I also push to cover or do I introduced the tyres in a good way, because it was a long race ahead still. And I saw already in Turn 2 and Turn 3 a place you save the tyres that he saved immediately, which gave me some comfort and allowed me to start saving at the same time. So it’s a difficult one because if he would have pushed too early, he would have completely gone off a cliff and maybe so would I. But it’s very difficult to judge those kind of things at that time of race.”
Sainz: “It was an extremely difficult point to take care of since clearly I did an extremely quick out lap to attempt and obtain within DRS or within series of attempting to surpass Lando after the pit quit. Also, in instance they had a fifty percent a 2nd to a 2nd slower rest stop that might place us available. And that’s why we sent out the undercut. Then after he appeared before me, you undergo this mind of do I press like heck currently to obtain within DRS, however Lando can likewise press and maintain me out of the DRS. And that indicates I’m mosting likely to damage my tires and not have an opportunity at the end of the race of placing him under stress. Or I conserve my tires to attempt and place them under stress at the end like I carried out in the very first job.
“And so it’s very difficult thing to judge with these tyres to use the first three laps to extract the peak of the tyre or to save that to the end of the race. I don’t think it would have mattered. I think McLaren and Lando today, with a Hard tyre, they were just one or two tenths quicker. And he could have used that pace whenever he wanted to keep me at bay, you know. Even though on the Medium I really strongly believed we had a chance, little by little with the Hard, it just seemed like it was getting tougher and tougher. And that’s where I think the weakness of our car started to also appear and the strengths of the McLaren started to appear again. And it slipped away from us a bit.”
Vasseur: “No, we were more expecting to push Norris at the end of the race and on the degradation. But it didn’t happen. But we knew also that overall the delta pace is from one stint to the other one. Between McLaren and us it’s plus or minus one tenth. And this is not enough to overtake. It means that it’s much more on the degradation at the end of the stint than something else.”
Norris’ drive, knowledgeable about Ferrari’s possibility–
Stella: “Lando revealed his toughness providing an excellent weekend break and an excellent race when all the stress was on him. He remained really tranquil. Very tranquility on the radio. He thought about some hard choices that we offered him, like when we claimed, would certainly you match in instance of security auto or otherwise for a brand-new collection. I believe we saw Lando at his finest and his finest is unbelievably affordable. I can not wait to see Lando and Oscar in the future with an affordable auto right from race one. The entire period remained in the last [Norris] rest stop. An issue at the pit quit and we might have shed the placement to Carlos, and we might have shed the champion. The men provided what I believe is among the most effective rest stop of the period, verifying the trajectory, which was not just auto efficiency however was the general maturation, attitude, psychological durability of the whole group.
“So all this in some way was offered the possibility to be revealed many thanks to the crash in edge one. Hopefully in the future we do not require misfortunes, and we can have a quicker auto and we can be simply much safer and not remaining in a crucial race at the last races of the period. And yes, we knew, that’s why we were pressing really hard with Oscar to see to it that we might obtain P9 since both factors would certainly have been essential. And we were absolutely anxious since not just backmarkers were a trouble however the security auto would certainly have been a trouble since Carlos might have done the reverse of what we do. So, if we do not pit, they might have gone on brand-new tire and it would certainly have been a trouble, if we had actually matched, it would certainly have taken the lead and we need to have surpassed him, so we were absolutely anxious, due to this taking place.
“Not so much about the backmarkers, somehow it is expected you lose a bit of grip behind backmarker, but this is not a track where like…there’s a lot of space to overtake backmarkers. At that stage, Lando had built a good gap to Carlos, which was good to see, by the way, because in the first stint there not much to pick in terms of performance between Ferrari and McLaren, but on the harder compound, like it has often happened this season, Lando was the quickest car on track and this meant that we have safety in our buffer.”
Strategy scene, prospective leak–
Vasseur: “Honestly not since I believe one of the most vital is to be concentrated on on your own and to do the most effective that we can do. Then if you remain close, you do not recognize what might take place likewise. I believe we have a problem, a slit therefore that, we are simply concentrated on ourselves to attempt to do the most effective. And the most effective was the method that we did. But currently it was specifically what we really did not intend to do, to alter the method or to alter the mindset even if we are combating with McLaren, that we are simply concentrated on ourselves from Friday.
“And I think overall considering the penalty, the track limit and so that we did a good job. But it was the most important just to be focused on ourselves. For Carlos’ radio, we saw nothing. It’s why we didn’t pit him. I think he went on some debris in turn 6 or 7. It was after the crash of Magnussen and Bottas. And I think the week after Qatar he was a bit stressed and under pressure with the puncture. He jumped on the radio speaking about this. It was more the vibration than something else. But no worries about this.”
Leclerc’s drive, battery scene–
Vasseur: “It was huge that he was P8 I believe, wash 1 or something similar to this. And after that he surpassed Gasly, Hulkenberg,Russell And this was huge. We were simply concentrated on ourselves once more to discover the most effective service and the method since he was still 15 secs behindCarlos If you match once more you return right into the web traffic. It was much more the administration of our auto than the worldwide photo of the race. For sure, it’s constantly much easier and much better therefore. But you do not need to believe similar to this. I believe that for certain I would certainly have chosen to have Charles on P1, P2, P3 than with the clinical auto.
“But at the end it is like it is and we have to do with the penalty that we get. Penalty is in your hands. We have to do a better job on the battery and it is like it is. The risk was not any more a risk. It was a clear statement that we were losing performance. It was difficult to quantify the loss of performance, but it was a decent one. And also with the risk of DNF. At one stage when we evaluated the situation just before FP1, because we were still trying to recharge at this stage, we decided to switch.”
Here’s race beginning: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-abu-dhabi-grand-prix-chaos-on-the-race-start-as-piastri-drops-to-last-after-contact-with-verstappen.1817878174133810865
Here’s gain from Charles Leclerc: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-abu-dhabi-grand-prix-leclerc-makes-up-a-staggering-11-places-on-lap-1-in-the-season-finale.1817882119777496031
Here’s winning minute: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-abu-dhabi-grand-prix-norris-crosses-the-line-to-take-victory-and-clinch-the-constructors-title-for-mclaren.1817889913691908369
Here’s just how F1 Abu Dhabi GP worked out
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