George Russell claimed McLaren are “in a league of their own” in Abu Dhabi based on Friday’s running, as although Charles Leclerc set the pace in FP1, it’s all about what happens when the sun sets and the lights come on.
Lando Norris’s fastest time on the soft tyre, 1:23.517s, was two tenths clear of his teammate Oscar Piastri’s, with the fastest Ferrari of Carlos Sainz being 0.582s off Norris’ benchmark.
This display of pace from McLaren led to comments from many of the drivers from the top four teams with Max Verstappen saying they looked “very quick” and Carlos Sainz saying “they look the strongest this weekend”.
This single lap pace advantage for McLaren in FP2 carried over to the long runs completed by the teams. The combined average lap times of Norris and Piastri over 7 laps each on the medium tyre puts McLaren second in the teams ranking – behind only Haas, whose time is biased by Hulkenberg’s run being on the soft tyre.
Mercedes were McLaren’s closest match for longer run pace, with Hamilton’s 7 lap run being the fastest of the medium tyre runners, just over a tenth quicker than Piastri’s average. Red Bull sat 0.147s back from McLaren, but Ferrari were further off the pace with Leclerc and Sainz’s combined average over four tenths slower.
Even in the face of this data, Carlos Sainz feels Ferrari can find “two to three tenths” overnight to put them back in the battle for the rest of the weekend, with the Ferrari driver also noting that Abu Dhabi is classically a McLaren circuit:
“McLaren has always been quick here in the past. It’s always been a track for McLaren but also, Lando has been very quick in Abu Dhabi before.”
He’s not wrong – in 2023, Lando qualified and finished in P5, in 2022 he finished P6 from P7, in 2021 he qualified in P3 but ended in P7, in 2020 he went from P4 to P5 and in 2019, Lando ended the race in P8 – it’s a pattern of performance in Abu Dhabi that has persisted through his F1 career.
This year the advantage McLaren have appears to be coming from their pace in the twistier parts of the Yas Marina lap. Though they topped the overall lap time charts, they sat at or near the bottom of the speed trap chart.
McLaren are running a higher downforce rear wing than Ferrari this weekend, giving them the advantage through most of the circuit’s corners and particularly sector 3. Though comparing Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz’s fastest FP2 laps reflects an upper hand down the straight for the Ferrari, over the whole lap the McLaren is quickest due to its higher drag setup and cornering advantage.
Though the data is stacked against them and Sainz feels “it’s going to be a tough ask to beat” McLaren, Ferrari will be aiming to recover some pace overnight using their learnings from Friday’s free practice sessions.
Charles Leclerc said following practice, “Carlos and I have had a great four years together and we want to finish in style. We rely on each other to make our shared dream of a constructors’ title come true, we will give it absolutely all we’ve got.”
To claim their first constructors’ title since 2008, Ferrari have to outscore McLaren by 22 points with the easiest path to this being by taking the victory in Sunday’s grand prix. This path has closed up slightly given Leclerc’s 10 place grid drop for taking an energy store outside his season allowance, meaning at this point in the weekend, the momentum has swung in McLaren’s favour.
