Luke’s Weekend Review – Abu Dhabi GP 2023

On lap 17, we see Max Verstappen pit from the lead to come in and change onto the hard compound tyre and at Ferrari they opted not to pit on the same lap which was quite surprising but I guess their race was not with Max but with Mercedes for the constructors championship. On lap 18 Leclerc pits for his stop and comes out 5th behind Max Verstappen with the 3 drivers ahead yet to pit. By lap 19 we see Max back in the podium places and by lap 23 he was back in the lead as Yuki Tsunoda pits from the lead and comes out in 12th.

On lap 22 we hear Toto Wolff come on the radio to Lewis Hamilton to let him know that he was doing a good job and that he was the 2nd fastest man on track the lap before, about 5 laps later Toto comes back on the radio to tell him he is the fastest on track at the time. This is not something we see every week but it seems that Hamilton might have needed the motivation in order to help Mercedes Clinch the 2nd spot in the championship as coming into this race Mercedes were only 4 points ahead of Ferrari and Leclerc was running in 2nd. On lap 30 which is just over half way in the race Mercedes are still 1 point ahead and both cars seem to have the right race pace to keep at it. On lap 41 we hear Russell come on the radio to see where Hamilton was and if he was doing ok in the race, at this point it was Ferrari who had the upper hand as they were up by 1 point but Sainz was yet to pit at least one more time.

On lap 24 we see Carlos Sainz finally come in for his first pitstop but it was a surprise when he took another fresh set of hards committing himself to a 2 stop given that he had started the race on hards as well. Sainz comes back out in 16th after his first pit which is where he originally started the race. Sergio Perez was having a fairly decent race himself as on lap 28 we see him breeze past Piastri to get into 5th place and from there he was also able to put his head down and drive ahead chasing the other cars in front of him.

On lap 33 we see Gasly be the first one to come back into the pits from anyone who was on a 2 stop, this again starts a fresh wave of pit stops as all teams try to protect from any undercuts as again we see Norris on lap 34 come in which then triggered Russell to come in on lap 35 to protect from Norris but also attack Leclerc ahead of him. Ferrari however ruined the party for Russell as they pit Leclerc to protect him from the Mercedes undercut. Lewis Hamilton also pits on lap 36.

A rare occurrence happened on lap 37 as we hear Verstappen come on the radio telling his team to pit Perez ahead of him if needed given that it will help Perez more in the race. Was this Verstappen being a good teammate or was he thinking about another record that he could break in this race which was about Verstappen leading a total of a 1000 laps in a single season.

After Fernando Alonso pits we see him coming out ahead of Hamilton and then another bizarre moment as we see him brake test Hamilton as he let off the throttle way before the braking zone. Stewards noted this incident down for driving erratically however later announced that there was no further investigation needed for this. The Red Bull pair wanted to give themselves as big of a chance they could get as we see Perez pitting on lap 43 to let go of 2nd place and Leclerc reclaims 2nd place however with Perez on very good pace, it was going to be tough for Leclerc to hold him behind in the closing stages of the race. Max was able to pit on lap 44 who managed to come back out in 1st place.

Lewis Hamilton, Pierre Gasly, Max Verstappen, Logan Sargeant and Zhou Guanyu were announced that they will be investigated after the race for a pitstop infringement which immediately spiked curiosity as I don’t remember seeing them do anything wrong, however Ted Kravits come on the commentary later on saying that this was most likely as the pit crew didn’t have their eye protection put on properly which would most likely lead to a fine for the team and not a penalty for the drivers. No news at the time of posting this article about the outcome of this.

On lap 47 we see Perez coming from quite a far behind and goes for a move on Norris and was able to get alongside but didn’t give Norris enough space in the corner and the pair touch which forced Norris to cut the corner and get back ahead. On lap 48 Perez was able to make the move cleanly and made it stick. Both drivers complained about the other driver saying that the other is at fault but the stewards seem to have seen it the same as Norris and handed Perez a 5 second penalty which hampered the Mexican driver a bit for his podium chances.

The battle for 2nd place was one of the main things to watch this race and Ferrari decided to keep Sainz out as late as possible in the hopes of a safety car to try and get him back in the points, however this didn’t pan out as Sainz was losing a lot of time and on lap 48, Hamilton was also able to get past him. On lap 52 Mercedes were at the time 2 points ahead of Ferrari with Sainz still to pit. This is where Leclerc decided to become a bit of a strategist as well as a driver as on lap 54 we see Perez get past Russell but Perez needed to get a 5 second gap in order to be able to keep that podium place and we hear Leclerc come on the radio to tell his team to keep him updated with the gap between Perez and Russell in case he needs to back off a bit to help Perez get the necessary gap and finish ahead of Russell which would have sealed 2nd place for Ferrari.

On lap 57 we see Sainz pit for his final pitstop and unfortunately for Ferrari the safety car gamble didn’t pay off, however we also see Leclerc back off massively to give Perez DRS and also let him past to give him some clean air to try and get the 5 second gap to Russell, this unfortunately didn’t pan out either for Ferrari as Russell finished within 3.8 seconds of Perez which meant that Perez didn’t manage to clinch 3rd place from Russell.

Max Verstappen for the 19th time this season takes the chequered flag and the fastest lap followed by Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Sergio Perez, Lando Norris, Oscar Piasrti, Fernando Alonso, Yuki Tsunoda, Lewis Hamilton and Lance Stroll form the top 10. It is worth mentioning the absolute dominance by Max Verstappen this season as we look back we see that he won 19 out of 22 races, had two P2 finishes and one P5 finish, managed to lead a race for more than a 1000 laps, be the only driver to finish all the racing laps this season and winning the 3rd drivers championship in a row while also helping Red Bull get the constructors championship as well.

Who do you think were your winners and losers in Abu Dhabi GP? What a season that was in 2023, we now head into the winter break for 97 days before we return for the 2024 testing in Bahrain. I hope that next season we will get some closer racing at the front of the grid from race 1 and have a closer battle for the championship and may the best man win.