The last qualifying of the year wasn’t as exciting as many others this season, but it still gave a lot of ideas interesting And technicians. The first, however, is almost “colored”, with the splendid performance of a concentrated and fantastic Sebastian Vettelwho brings out a truly excellent performance in the last race of his career, among the best three definitely seen on the track. Going to the top positions, lo overpower Red Bull seen in free practice was also confirmed in qualifying. Verstappen set the fastest time despite a set-up of the car to him not particularly congenial. There rear end protection and the balance towards it lead the RB18 to have a certain neutrality tending towards understeer in behavior and the thing is badly digested by the two-time World Champion, who however, with his talent, compensates and gets the umpteenth pole position. The balance described above goes, however, precisely in the direction of the driving style of Verstappen’s companion, that is Sergio Perezwho qualified second, also risking something visas just 40 thousandths ahead of Charles Leclerc. Red Bull appeared absolutely there dominant car and the closeness between Perez and Leclerc in the qualifying time seems to derive more from a not particularly brilliant performance by the Mexican compared to a great tour of the Monegasque. Ferrari eventually opted for maintain trim at medium load seen in practice, but, contrary to what was seen in the third free practice session, in qualifying la The Pony’s Power Unit appeared to push Significantly. The impression from the data was also that Carlos Sainz had a small plus on Leclerc from this point of view, indicating that in the end Maranello was opted for risk the riskable in terms of power, although we are convinced that the choice of the medium load wing derives directly from the fact that in any case the Power Unit on the F1-75 cannot be used at full capacity. In any case also in the last qualifying of the year Charles Leclerc did almost a miracle. With medium downforce his red has proven itself nervous on the flying lap, difficult to tame, especially in the third sector, with a light and unstable rear, but in that section the Monegasque even recorded the absolute best performanceshowing a real shot of talent.
Indeed, if we look at the data and focus on the throttle map (below) paying attention to the third sector (purple arrow), we note that Leclerc manages the whole section of curves 12-13 and 14 with a trend partial and progressive of the accelerator, unlike Verstappen (but also Hamilton and all the others) who in that section drive in a more “standard” way, alternating accelerator and brake. This is because, on the one hand, a car with as much grip as the Red Bull in that stretch allows it to be more aggressive and violent inputssomething that Leclerc could not afford in order not to tear the tire and lose grip, on the other hand with this more fluid and harmonious management Leclerc manages to find brilliant traction out of turn 14 in the direction of turn 15, managing to “even” the score with Verstappen in the third sector (and moving forward by 5 thousandths of a second). Looking at the data for the rest of the lap, we notice the usual stretch of Red Bull to DRS openbut with a much more limited gap in terms of top speed compared to what was seen in practice, confirms that, as previously mentioned, if Ferrari had been extremely conservative on the power front up until the third free practice, the situation changed in qualifying and which, evidently, the set-up chosen also led the simulator to this type of equilibrium on top speeds.
Third force with an important gap was instead la Mercedes, close to Ferrari in terms of performance in free practice, but unable to make a further leap in performance in qualifying. The flying lap discipline was the worst digested by the W13 throughout the season and Abu Dhabi was no exception. On the other hand, the aerodynamic structure ad high load chosen, combined with disproportionate resistance to progress, make Hamilton and Russell’s car unsuitable for expressing speed peaks and record times over a single lap. Suffice it to say that Sergio Perez, with Verstappen’s slipstream, reached 331 km/h on the straight, while Hamilton stopped at just 321, 10 km/h less, a really important number. Regarding Verstappen’s slipstream at Perez, we checked the data and, although Verstappen can hardly be seen from the onboard images, the two riders were separated by about 4/5 secondswhich are the standard distance used for this type of situation, where the chasing pilot gets a minimum benefit in a straight line, without risking compromising the downforce in the driven sections.
Pay attention to the race pace – Ferrari then appeared much improved compared to free practice, close to Red Bull and with a significant advantage over the two Mercedes, an important fact from a perspective second place Constructors. We have to though be careful because the Abu Dhabi track has taught many times (the last one last year) that performance in qualifying it is in no way a guarantee of performance in the racewhere the rear management remains the most determining factor. The same power output becomes unusable if the tires responsible for traction overheat and no longer guarantee its discharge to the ground, which is why the rear axle temperatures will be the limiting factor for everyone during the race. Ferrari showed a good step forward also on the front degradation in the third free practice session, but the two reds were, at that moment, the only ones doing pace tests and there is no way to evaluate this performance in comparison to the others. The impression is that Red Bull could have an easy time flying towards the race shotgunwhile the two redheads may have to watch each other from a return of the Mercedes guaranteed by good rubber management. This would obviously mean that Leclerc would lose second place in the Drivers’ World Championship, but that the Maranello team would guarantee itself the one in the Constructors’ standings. However, Leclerc and Perez start next to each other and the options still remain on the table for this last race of the season.
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