As Max Verstappen has had the 2024 Formula 1 drivers’ championship sewn up for nearly two weeks, the only competitive interest in this Abu Dhabi season finale centres on which of McLaren or Ferrari will wrap up the constructors’ title.
That’s other than the early mind games shots of possible 2025 title contenders Verstappen and George Russell…
But in the much more meaningful fight, it’s firmly advantage McLaren – ahead by 21 points anyway – after two practice sessions from the Yas Marina track on Friday.
The story of the day
Once again here the opening practice session was dominated by rookies – with five newbies joining Liam Lawson (a special case in himself given his 2023 race appearances), Franco Colapinto and Jack Doohan (also with special circumstances) as the ‘regular’ first-timers.
The opening one-hour session was bittersweet for Ferrari, with Charles Leclerc leading the way with a 1m24.321s in the unrepresentative sunny running.
He got to join his brother on track for a slice of F1 world championship history as the first siblings to drive for the same team in a GP weekend session (Argentina 1971 and the Fittipaldi brothers turning out for Lotus not counting due its non-championship status).
But the elder Leclerc had missed the opening half of FP1 due to an issue with his car’s battery, with Ferrari swiftly revealing this had needed to be changed and so he will now have to take a 10-place grid drop for wherever he qualifies ahead of Sunday’s race. Already, it was advantage even further to McLaren in the constructors’ battle.
Looming engine penalty for Leclerc points to a tough challenge for Ferrari to snatch the constructors’ championship
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
The orange team’s fortunes in the early exchange of this final scrap got even better when it dominated FP2, while Ferrari comparatively struggled – this as usual the only practice session that matters given its similar twilight setting to the race and night-time qualifying.
Norris led pretty much throughout in FP2 – bar a few seconds when he was headed by team-mate Oscar Piastri during their qualifying simulation efforts – and ended up top with a 1m23.517s.
Qatar winner Verstappen, meanwhile, struggled so badly with understeer on his Red Bull he trailed Sergio Perez on both one-lap and race pace.
The long-run race simulations that closed FP2 brought further good news for McLaren, as…
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