Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

The 2024 Season Comes to a Close

The final race of the season is complete and whilst it wasn’t a classic, it will be remembered for being the race where McLaren secured their first Constructors Championship since 1998. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were not even born in 1998, and it was the year I started watching the sport. Knowing the cars were carrying more downforce than the Ferrari’s, I was slightly worried they would be mugged down the back straight. Thankfully that didn’t happen, largely in part because of the contact between Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri which gave Norris a good gap that he was able to maintain and extend.

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First Corner Shenanigans

“Move of a world champion that one”

Oscar Piastri

If you’ve got your tin foil hat on, you may buy into the conspiracy theory that the contact between Vestappen and Piastri was and intentional attempt to thwart McLaren from winning the Constructors Championship. The reasoning behind this is due to the “bad blood” between Zak Brown and Christian Horner. I do not buy in to this however it is another example of a typical Verstappen “I am coming through, if you don’t get out the way we will make contact” lunge up the inside. After the race he confirmed that it was his mistake and that he had tried to get out of it but could not. I find this is an odd thing to say considering during the race he thought the penalty was ridiculous. It didn’t really help Piastri who lost more time than Verstappens 10 second penalty and then caused a collision of his own. Still, he managed to fight his way back into the points.

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Leclerc Inspired Drive Not Enough for Ferrari

Starting at the back of the grid Leclerc had a phenomenal race finishing in 3rd, he managed to avoid the contact at turn 1 and really stepped up to help put his team put McLaren under pressure. I will say however that the Ferrari is clearly much quicker than most of the cars out there so we shouldn’t be surprised that he managed to get on the podium, it’s not the first time we have seen this happen from a driver out of position, Verstappen and Hamilton have done it many times. I can be quite critical of the Ferrari drivers at time, they always have a mistake in them, but neither of them did make any mistakes, unfortunately for them it wasn’t enough.

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A Weekend of Goodbyes and Potential Goodbyes

It’s not unusual for people to move around in F1, but we seem to have had more after this weekend than in previous seasons. Several goodbyes and not all of them went out on a good note. Colapinto ended his 9-race run with Williams retiring with an engine issue. Bottas ended his disastrous spell at Kick Sauber by putting Perez out of the race and then slamming into Magnussen, who left Haas finishing a lap down in 16th but claiming the fastest lap. Zhou Guanyu didn’t fare much better in 13th. Checo Perez retired after contact with Bottas, at the time of writing remains contracted to Red Bull for next season, but there are strong rumours this was his last race for RB. On a more positive note, Hulkenberg finished 8th in his last drive for Haas and Hamilton drove a great race to finish 4th in his last race for Mercedes.

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A Farewell to Hamilton

I just wanted to quickly mention Hamilton. Obviously, this weekend was his last race for Mercedes, its forged one of the most memorable partnerships in F1 history with multiple Drivers and Constructors championships. Watching from the outside it feels like the right time and it seems like Hamilton needs a new challenge. Whilst it is a big deal all of the coverage, events and media attention it received this past weekend is ridiculous. After the race he was given a spot alongside the top 3 on the grid, he was supposed to have his own post-race interview that was cancelled. Anyone would think he was retiring from the sport, he’s only leaving Mercedes. A lot of the TV coverage as well particularly after the race was focused on this and I kind of felt it took away from discussing McLarens achievement. If they are like this with him moving to another team, I can’t imagine what they will be like when he actually retires.

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Results

1st	Lando Norris	11th	Alex Albon
2nd	Carlos Sainz	12th	Yuki Tsunoda
3rf	Charles Leclerc	13th	Zhou Guanyu
4th	Lewis Hamilton	14th	Lance Stroll
5th	George Russell	15th	Jack Doohan
6th	Max Verstappen	16th	Kevin Magnussen
7th	Pierre Gasly	DNF	Liam Lawson
8th	Nico Hulkenberg	DNF	Valtteri Bottas
9th	Fernando Alonso	DNF	Franco Colapinto
10th	Oscar Piastri	DNF	Sergio Perez

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What Is Next?

With the season now finished, attention turns to the post season test, then all eyes will be on 2025 which starts in roughly 90 days. I will post my thoughts on any rumours or gossip circulating in that time. But I also intend to write some team-by-team reviews on how I feel they performed during this season. I will release these during the off season. Hopefully next season the blog can grow and improve.