Jeopardy is in short supply as Formula 1 heads into the final race of a season, but what there is surrounds the fight between titans Mercedes and Ferrari over second place in the constructors’ championship.
Mercedes’ advantage is just four points.
Some might consider this something of a consolation prize, or a reward for not doing a good enough job, but both teams have taken achieving that target in Abu Dhabi on Sunday as something of a badge of honour after difficult years.
Why does this matter so much? Partly it’s because there is approximately $10m in prize money between each position in the constructors’ championship. But there is a degree of self-validation involved, too.
For Mercedes, it would be a recognition that they have done the best job possible having realised even before the season started that they had made a mistake in not abandoning last year’s discredited car-design concept.
For Ferrari, it would be validation of the progress they have made after starting the season with a vicious, uncompetitive car but making steady progress on development to the extent that in the second half of the season, their qualifying pace has actually been faster on average than Red Bull – even if only by a scant 0.008 seconds.
There are also only 11 points between McLaren and Aston Martin in fourth and fifth places – although that is a much more difficult task to overturn given the lower-scoring positions likely to be available to Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll on Sunday compared to Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
There are places up for grabs in the drivers’ championship, too. But Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Alonso – currently tied on points in fourth and fifth – and Norris and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in sixth and seventh care not a jot where they finish in those standings, other than its impact on the constructors.
Genuinely unpredictable… behind Verstappen
The destiny of the race is surely not in doubt. Max Verstappen starts his Red Bull on his 12th pole position of the season, his race pace has been in another universe compared to everyone else’s and he is an odds-on bet to take his 19th victory in 22 races this year.
If he does, it would move him on to 54 career wins – ahead of Sebastian Vettel into third place in the all-time list behind only Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher. It’s a remarkable statistic for someone not far past his 26th birthday. But, there are more races for him to win in the modern era.
Behind him, though, it starts to become genuinely unpredictable.
Leclerc has qualified his Ferrari second; George Russell is fourth for Mercedes. But their team-mates had a torrid time in qualifying – Lewis Hamilton is 11th; Carlos Sainz, who has been struggling for pace all weekend, was knocked out in the first session and starts 16th.
In the battle for second, the momentum is with Ferrari. After the Dutch Grand Prix, Ferrari were in fourth place, also behind Aston Martin, and 54 points adrift of Mercedes.
Since then, they have been on an impressive run, including a win for Sainz in Singapore, and two podiums in the last three races for Leclerc, and the gap to Mercedes has come down steadily.
With Leclerc starting in second, Russell in fourth, Lewis Hamilton in 11th and Sainz in 16th, the fight between Mercedes and Ferrari is on a knife-edge.
But qualifying pace and race pace are not the same – and although Ferrari have improved their tyre degradation in recent races, it is still a weakness and Abu Dhabi is a track that is merciless with tyres.
Leclerc said: “The only thing that matters to me is that we challenge Mercedes and take second in the constructors’. In the drivers’, finishing fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh I don’t care but second in the constructors’ would be nice. We just need to beat the Mercedes.
“Let’s hope Carlos can get a good start and come into the fight and hope we can get both of our cars ahead of theirs.”
Russell, buoyed by Mercedes’ pace in practice, said: “I’m going to treat it like any other race, I want to fight for the podium and finish the season on a high. I think we will have good pace over the McLarens and Charles.”
Between McLaren and Aston Martin, the odds are very much in McLaren’s favour as they are 11 points ahead – which means Alonso needs a fourth place and the McLarens not to score to have a chance of overhauling them.
“Both start in front of us,” Alonso said. “Let’s see what we can do. We need something to happen to beat them. But this is F1, it is not exact mathematics and maybe we have this little miracle.”
