Analysis of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, brought to you by Bahrain International Circuit
F1 – Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri hadn’t been born. The Bahrain Grand Prix was six years away from its first race and Aston Villa were top of the Premier League. It was 1998 and the last time that McLaren won the Constructors’ Championship. It’s been a long wait and it was a stretch even 18 months ago for fans to believe that they would be celebrating a Constructors’ Championship in 2024.
But after a commanding performance and a Lando Norris victory, the Papaya team protected their points advantage to take home the crown. It’s been a turnaround of spectacular proportions for the team and a victory made even sweeter due to the incredible hard work of so many of the team in Woking. It is arguably one of the great turnaround stories in global sport in recent years.
McLaren will have been forgiven for showing a few nerves coming to Abu Dhabi after what happened in Qatar, but if there were any lingering worries it certainly didn’t show in qualifying as the pair locked out the front row in commanding fashion. Critically, in terms of the Constructors’ Championship and the fight with Ferrari, Leclerc had a 10-place grid penalty for a battery change and, combined with an early exit from qualifying, he would start 19th. Sainz, however, was there to threaten, sitting just behind the McLaren pair in third. Verstappen, Gasly and Russell completed the top six.
Whilst Norris got off to the perfect start in the race, it was disaster for Piastri, who was taken out by Verstappen on the first corner and left him last at the end of the first lap. Verstappen would subsequently take a 10 second penalty for that move. Piastri’s race would get even worse as an incident during a virtual safety car gave him a ten second grid penalty. Whilst he later fought back to tenth, the maths were simple for McLaren. Norris simply had to win. In a race that was a borderline one to two stop strategy, he led from the front, managed his gap to the prowling Ferraris behind, kept his tyres under control and delivered the drive of his career. If he felt any pressure, he didn’t show it. Not only did he have Sainz just behind him in second, Leclerc drove an impressive early race to get his car into third. But despite best efforts, the Englishman held out for a standout victory and the all-important constructors’ trophy for McLaren, ending that 26 year wait.
Whilst Ferrari will have taken little consolation from their two podium places, Lewis Hamilton in his last race for Mercedes showed his timeless class, finishing fourth having started 18th on the grid. Whilst perhaps not the finish he had hoped for, it was an impressive end to his Mercedes career as he heads to Ferrari next year. George Russel was not far behind in fifth, with Verstappen, Gasly and Hulkenberg just behind. Fernando Alonso and Oscar Piastri completed the top 10.
However, it will be McLaren who will rightly take the headlines and plaudits for this victory, given the history of this turnaround. Many will look back to Austria 2023 as the turning point for McLaren. At the start of that season in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the new McLaren car was languishing at the bottom of the championship, having not scored a single point. Longstanding-fans of the team were facing the prospect of another a year of disappointment, for a team whose rightful place, for an outfit with so much history of success, should be right up at the front.
In March of that year, recently appointed team boss Andrea Stella announced a series of significant changes to its technical team. Little did any of us know that from that point McLaren would complete a turnaround of such epic proportions that it would walk away with the constructors’ championship just over 18 months later.
On track, the winds of change appeared for the first time in Austria of that year. Indeed, in this column it was noted that there were reasons for optimism for the Woking team after a series of significant upgrades gave Lando Norris a fourth place finish. Just one race later, the team took a step further with Norris taking his first podium in F1 since Italy 2022, equalling his highest ever finishing position. The second half of the season delivered consistent podiums for both drivers, with the turnaround in fortunes very stark indeed. Up until that Austrian race, McLaren had amassed just 17 points in the season. From then, they amassed 285 points in just 14 races. This included a double podium in Japan, a Sprint Race win for Piastri and the arrival of their new wind tunnel. But there was still much to do. That first win of this new era still eluded them and there was no doubt that the ambition for the team was not just limited to regular podium finishes.
The next milestone arrived in Miami in May 2024 with Lando Norris’ first win, five successive second place finishes after that and then a one-two finish in Hungary. Perhaps it was at this point that fans started to really believe. Whilst the gap between the teams at the top was narrow, it was the consistency of both drivers that kept the team with a realistic chance in the Championship.
Whilst there may have been a hint of disappointment from Norris that his slim chance of a drivers’ title ended in Las Vegas when Verstappen made that mathematically impossible, all eyes for the team and its hordes of fans around the world were on the gap between McLaren and its closest challengers, Ferrari. The coolness to deliver a front row lockout in Abu Dhabi after the disappointment of Qatar was a true sign of maturity and poise under pressure.
And so it was, that under the lights of Abu Dhabi the dreams of millions across the world dressed in papaya came true. It was not just a reward for patience, but an inspiring story of what can be achieved in such a short time, with hard work and dedication.
Whilst F1 now takes its end of season break and will return for pre-season testing here in Bahrain at the end of February, McLaren fans can sit back, reflect on this new success and perhaps now begin to dream again for the next prize. A drivers’ championship for 2025?
* Laurence Jones is senior manager, Marketing and Communications, Bahrain International Circuit
l.jones@bic.com.bh
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