Abu Dhabi GP: Verstappen's 19th race win brings the curtain down on the 2023 World Championship season

The 2023 Formula 1 World Championship come sto an end, with yet another triumphant parade for Max Verstappen and the fight in the Constructors' Championship (behind Red Bull, obviously) which is resolved in favour of Mercedes over Ferrari. The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, in truth, didn't have many twists and turns, more or less repeating in the final classification the performance levels that had already emerged at the end of qualifying:

So let's analyze what happened, obviously starting from who finished the race on the podium in Yas Marina...

Verstappen unchallenged, Leclerc does what he can but it's not enough: Ferrari third in the Constructors' Championship

Already on the first of the 58 laps it was clear that Max Verstappen would not easily give up the leadership of the race: to the two - rather aggressive - attacks by Charles Leclerc, the 3-time World Champion responded by "closing the door" and staying ahead...

Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

From that moment on, in fact, the Dutchman began yet another triumphant drive: a first stint on Medium at a pace very similar to that of the Ferrari driver, and two other stints (on Hard tyres) with a decidedly better pace, which in fact it allowed him to open a gap of over 10 seconds until Charles had continued to push...

"It's been an incredible season. The in-lap was a bit emotional, it was the last time I sat in this car, which gave me a lot... I have to say a big thank you to everyone at Red Bull, It will be difficult to do something like this again, but we definitely had fun here. Surely all the other teams out there will want to try to beat us next season and we're ready for the battle, but in the meantime we'll have some fun this year too"

Max Verstappen

The ease with which Max imposed an unapproachable pace for everyone in the stints on the Hard tyres is a bit of a snapshot of the entire season, where in many occasions he gave the idea of having an extra margin that he could unleash when needed: this makes me think that we've probably never seen the true potential of this Verstappen - RB19 duo, except for very short stretches (I'm thinking about the race at Suzuka, for example...).

Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

The gap at the finish line between Max and Charles, however, was close to 18 seconds, but to be honest it must be said that this gap is the result of an attempt by Leclerc of slowing down on purpose to mix up the cards and try to put Sergio Perez's Red Bull between himself and the rival George Russell. The attempt, unfortunately for the team from Maranello, was not successful, as the 5 second penalty (unfairly) imposed on the Mexican proved to be too many to hope to overtake the Mercedes Englishman on the line, with the penalty served.

"Honestly I was totally alongside Norris, not having full control of the car in the corner. We were wheel to wheel and we touched, I think the penalty is unfair [...] I'm happy that the season is over, we had some moments difficult and the most important lesson I have learned is to never give up"

Sergio Perez

"I had heard that Perez had a 5-second time penalty and we decided to help him in some way, letting him pass and hoping that he could get a 5-second gap on Russell to hold the position. I tried to give him DRS and a bit of slipstream, but it wasn't enough. On the other hand, I'm happy, because there's nothing we could have done better this weekend. As a team, it wasn't a given that we would be able to finish second here, because we weren't the second fastest in terms of performance. But we did a job incredible throughout the weekend, from strategies to qualifying [...] It's a shame though that we weren't able to get second place in the Constructors' World Championship, it was the only thing that mattered to me at the end of the season..."

Charles Leclerc

Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

On a strategic level, opposite to the pre-race predictions, the race took place over two pitstops, with stints in which all 20 drivers at the finish line avoided the use of the (fragile) Soft tyre. As can be seen in the graph provided by Pirelli, only three drivers (Tsunoda, Ocon and Bottas) opted for a single-stop strategy, which in retrospect proved to be slower: only a first stint on Medium in clean air allowed Tsunoda to finish in the points, while Ocon and Bottas closed outside the top 10.

However, this necessary strategic insight doesn't change the interpretation of a race in which the two Mercedes of Russell (P3) and Hamilton (P9) stood up against their rivals Ferrari and McLaren. Russell's podium is the result of a race in constant pressure on Leclerc, from whom he never suffered a chronometric loss similar to what we have seen in the last 2 or 3 races. It must be said that Mercedes pulled out the performance just when it was needed most, as mentioned to thwart the Italian team's attempt to overtake them in the standings.

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Finishing the season behind only Red Bull means for the English-German team to collect much higher cash prizes than those reserved for the third-placed team: this has little implications from a technical-sporting point of view (given that under cost cap all the top teams are largely able to find the budget for a Formula 1 season, with indeed the difficulty of not exceeding this threshold), while from a financial point of view the FIA prizes become - together with the return of image - what makes the participation in the World Championship an economically profitable operation. For a hypercompetitive world like the top class of motorsport, this is a huge factor...

Strategic disaster for Sainz, who goes from P4 to P7 in the Drivers' World Championship!

Behind the top drivers/teams, the driver of the day - considering the vehicle available to him - is the above-mentioned Yuki Tsunoda, eighth at the finish line with an Alpha Tauri AT04 which this year has had little to say. A good result to say goodbye to team principal Franz Tost, today at his last GP in that role after 17 years, i.e. when the Red Bull group purchased the Minardi team and renamed it Toro Rosso.

Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

A world championship point was also won by Lance Stroll, who, like Carlos Sainz in his Ferrari, was among the very few (only Bottas with them) to start on Hard tyres. The Ferrari driver experienced a real nightmare race, crucially ending in P18 but during which he never had the pace to arrange a comeback and get into the points paying positions. Added to this, there was a strategic disaster that is worth delving in a little more in detail.

"It was a really difficult race, already with the Hards in the first stint we didn't have the pace we expected. It's been like this throughout the year: every time we started on the Hards we weren't able to recover, for one reason or another [...] We were out of the points, we relied on luck to get into the top 10. It didn't happen, but in general these last two races have been very tough for me, since that accident in Las Vegas it seems like nothing went in my direction"

Carlos Sainz

As mentioned, the first stint was covered by Sainz on Hard tyres, on which he didn't feel comfortable from lap 1. At that point, around lap 20 it was clear that the Spaniard would never, ever be able to complete the race on a single pitstop, but that he would have to "split" the remaining laps into two stints. The question, at that point in the race, was: "Which compounds to use for the remaining stints?".

Logic dictates that it's appropriate to discard the only compound on which he had a bad experience, perhaps preferring the Mediums: sure, Sainz only had one set of Mediums available instead of two, but if I had been in place of the Ferrari pitwall I would have preferred to fit them anyway, try to move up the ranking and - for the last laps - fit a set of Softs (of which there were two new sets) or, in the worst case scenario, return to the Hards just to finish the race.

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

In any case, the strategy chosen by Ferrari (i.e. putting him on the Hard tyres once again and waiting for the eventuality of a Safety Car or a red flag) proved to be the worst, because in this way Carlos could only suffer attacks from cars faster than his, without having any strength to be able to respond. A difficult season finale to swallow for Sainz, who with this "zero" in the standings goes from fourth to seventh final position, overtaken by Alonso, Leclerc and Norris.

The World Championship is over, what awaits us on Race Analysis?

With the chequered flag of the Abu Dhabi GP, the first season spent together on these space ends... Here we tried to analyze the races from a technical and sporting point of view, trying to leave easy sensationalism out of our narrative. Now we have a winter break ahead of us which I'm sure will end in a flash, and we'll find ourselves commenting on the unveiling of the 2024 single-seaters, the pre-season testing and so on...

Before then, though, what will you find on this website between now and February? Mainly technical contents, which it has been difficult to focus on during the current season, especially due to the frenetic pace that this 2023 World Championship has imposed on us, with its 22 races!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for stopping by, be you occasional readers or regular "guests" of this space. As always, I remind you that Race Analysis is also on the social pages of Instagram, X and YouTube. See you soon!

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