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 gained the title in 2009 a crew aside from Mercedes or Pink Bull will likely 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 will likely be in the back of the grid due to a ten-place grid penalty incurred when the crew put in a brand new Vitality Retailer (ES) on his SF-24, another than the 2 allowed for annually below the foundations. 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 crew faces “mission unimaginable” in the case of the Constructors’ Championship.
“Yeah, I feel it was already extraordinarily troublesome. It was, like I mentioned, a little bit of a mission unimaginable already earlier than the weekend began. Then we arrived to FP1 and Charles’ battery died earlier than operating 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 troublesome. However on the similar 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 all the time going to be troublesome.
“It’s simply made our life much more troublesome. However till the chequered flag comes down tomorrow, you understand, something can occur. And I’m going to maintain combating for no matter comes. And I’m positive Charles from the again will push flat out to get each single level obtainable and see what occurs with the McLarens.”
Sainz additionally made an emotional enchantment concerning the Constructors’ Championship basically, outlining simply how vital that title is to every F1 crew.
“I feel each fan or each journalist or possibly each particular person that’s not absolutely or doesn’t absolutely purchase the Constructors’ Championship, the second you go to a Components 1 manufacturing unit, 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 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 crew counts in that distinction and it’s the drivers’ job and crew 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 crew and people hundredths add as much as the final tenth that possibly made McLaren faster right now 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 probably the most aggressive season in latest reminiscence coming to an in depth.
“On prime of that, I feel Components 1 is in a superb house proper now, with a degree enjoying subject between driver being vital, but additionally the crew. I feel groups are given extra equal alternative to struggle,” added Sainz. “And it’s not solely all about price range. It’s the folks, it’s the infrastructure which you can have, which you can obtain. And you may see it with McLaren, you’ll be able to 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 truthful as a result of the motive force could make extra of a distinction, but additionally the Constructors’ Championship extra truthful.”
Sainz has an opportunity to realize that dream in his remaining race with Ferrari earlier than shifting to Williams for subsequent season, even whether it is “mission unimaginable.”