This has been a very long Formula One season. The longest ever, in fact. We’re into the 22nd race this year, heading toward mid-December, and things just won’t stop happening. The championship might as well have come full circle to where we started in Bahrain. Just a short drive over in Abu Dhabi, the points difference between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen is exactly as it was 21 races ago.
Here’s what you need to know about what’s going down around Yas Marina:
The Closest Title Fight in 47 Years
OK, look. We can’t get around this. The last time the F1 title fight went down to the wire in this way, two guys exactly equal on points, neither Lewis Hamilton nor Max Verstappen was born. And back in 1974, there were just 15 races on the calendar and only the top six drivers to finish scored points.
In 2021, Hamilton and Verstappen sit at 369.5 points each and will stay that way until the checkered flag falls on Sunday. If neither of them scores a point during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Verstappen will take the drivers’ title as he’s won more races this year. If Hamilton can manage to score one more point than Verstappen, it’s his—or vice versa.
In terms of today’s action, Verstappen was fastest on softs in FP1, though Hamilton was fastest on medium tires in FP2. It’s incredibly likely, given how close both Red Bull and Mercedes looked to other teams, that both of them are sandbagging. They could very well be turning down their power units to avoid the other team getting much insight into practice runs, especially as there’s plenty of data to be gathered at what’s not the same old, boring circuit we’ve been going to.
Major Track Updates
Historically, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix has been kind of a snoozefest. That hasn’t mattered for a bit because it was also a total irrelevancy, coming so late in the season that basically everything was decided beforehand.
Last year McLaren managed a frisson of excitement by taking third in the constructors’ at the checkered flag, but the drivers’ title had been done for races by then, and honestly, it hasn’t been that significant since 2016. Even then it was meh because it was just Hamilton trying to back Nico Rosberg up and there wasn’t any overtaking happening to change the order they’d end the title fight in.
The problem was, mostly, the track itself. All right angles, it was the antithesis of a flowing circuit and was both annoying to drive and really bad for any kind of racing action. To be fair to track designers, getting modern F1 cars to look like they can overtake is something the FIA’s spent years reworking regulations to do. It’s by no means all on the apexes but there are definitely things you can do to help.
This is why, after the end of last F1 season, track designers Driven International were asked to work out a way to make things better. They worked on a bunch of ideas with MRK1 consulting, headed up by a former boss of the Yas Marina circuit, to try and make the venue something that could deliver an on-track spectacle, not just an awesome fireworks display afterward.
The result is a radically different final sector that’s much more fast-flowing. Even Formula 2, F1’s feeder series, shaved more than 12 seconds off its lap times with the differences. It’s early yet after only a couple of practice sessions, but Max Verstappen beat his own pole time by more than 10 seconds following just a few minutes on track.
Fast tracks don’t necessarily mean good racing but the changes should help a bit, giving drivers more space to make moves.