In the round-up: Mercedes says they used a “low risk” strategy in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix which was geared around ensuring they beat Ferrari to second in the championship.
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In brief
Mercedes’ Ferrari focus led to ‘low risk’ strategy that put Hamilton ninth
Lewis Hamilton ended the 2023 season with his third consecutive finish outside the top six. As he started 11th, ahead of one of the two Ferraris the team needed to out-score, Mercedes took a low-risk approach which left Hamilton in the lower reaches of the points when the race ended.
“If you look back to last year it was a mixture of one and two-stop strategies and that’s what we expected and what we saw this year,” Mercedes’ head of race strategy Rosie Wait explained in a video released by the team.
“If we had our time again knowing what we know now then I think most people would target a one-stop race very similar to Yuki Tsunoda but at the time we felt that that was quite a risky proposition and what we needed to focus on was getting ahead of the McLarens and finishing close enough to Ferrari to secure that P2 in the championship and the low risk way of doing that was to follow suit and commit to the two-stop as other cars did too.”
Prema drivers set the pace on day one of F2 testing
Formula 2’s post-season test at Yas Marina Circuit has begun, and Prema duo Ollie Bearman and Andrea Kimi Antonelli set the pace on the first day.
The fastest laps came in the afternoon session, with Ferrari junior Bearman setting a 1’36.092 towards the very end of the session. Mercedes junior Antonelli was 0.165 seconds slower in his first time in an F2 car. Alpine junior Victor Martins was third fastest for ART, 0.302s off the pace.
Trident’s Richard Verschoor was a third of a second slower than Bearman in fourth, with Hitech GP’s Amaury Cordeel a surprise fifth ahead of MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger.
The morning session was more dramatic, and topped by Martins with a 1’36.852 lap. He was fastest by 0.108s over Van Amersfoort Racing’s Enzo Fittipaldi. He, Trident’s Oliver Goethe and Rodin Carlin’s Ritomo Miyata – the 2023 Super Formula champion – were among the drivers responsible for causing red flag interruptions.
Carlin’s team founder departs senior role after 27 years
Carlin founder Trevor Carlin no longer occupies a senior role at the team….
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