2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - Yas Marina, Nov 24 - 26

[Wouter]

Last race of the season, no championships on the line, no pressure or anything, just a practice session!

Can’t really understand the point of rushing like that and trying to pass everyone in the pit lane…it wasn’t even qualifying!

He’s the only guy doing it again and again and he has been doing it for some races now! Classic slow reaction by the FIA…

.
It was the only FP for him to properly set up the car under the same weather conditions as the race.
A lot of time had already been lost, so you wanted to get on the track as quickly as possible.
A few seconds later you could miss an extra lap. That doesn't seem that difficult to understand, does it?
Alonso did exactly the same and it was legal.

[organic]

What is to stop the provisional polesitter in Q3 from trundling down the pitlane exit in the process preventing others from setting laps or having slow enough outlaps? Those behind cannot overtake and you are allowed to go as slow as you want to "build a gap" as long as you don't have "an obvious problem".

Just like the previous rule was taken advantage of, this will to and it will be a shitshow when they aren't allowed to punish it since the rules allow it

Why is creating this issue better than simply having drivers building a gap staying to the left and allowing drivers to overtake to the right like Brazil? It's chaotic race direction from Wittich again

[organic]

Overnight they scraped down the bump that caused sainz to bottom out

[chrisc90]

I dont see anything wrong with overtaking in the pitlane. Albeit marginally tight, if everyone played by the rules, then there would be adequate space. I think the FIA just dont want to try and recover a car in the tunnel where it might need lifting, especially with it going back up hill if it needed to be recovered on skates.

As Organic said, whats to stop someone going out and fully stopping someone having enough time at a final shot at a pole lap.

[TFSA]

Indeed, they came up with something dumb again.

Hey, hold your horses for a second. According to Toto, we have a competent race director this weekend! He wouldn't come up with dumb rules!

[avantman]

What is to stop the provisional polesitter in Q3 from trundling down the pitlane exit in the process preventing others from setting laps or having slow enough outlaps?

Nothing literally. Typical knee-jerk reaction. Wittich first does something, then he starts thinking about what he did.

[AR3-GP]

Verstappen's long run on soft looked promising. Started in 1.30 and finished in 1.28.\

Leclerc also on a long run on mediums. Tires are holding on well.

[AR3-GP]

Verstappen just went out on new softs, had a horrid 4 corners, aborted, and then told to box.

Leclerc's lap just getting started and looks very strong everywhere. Somehow, lap is only P5. Reports on the radio that he doesn't understand. 2 tenths off in S1. equal in S2. 4 tenths off in S3.

Sainz with no pace on his soft run. 7 tenths off Leclerc with a clean lap for both.

[TFSA]

Verstappen just went out on new softs, had a horrid 4 corners, aborted, and then told to box.

Leclerc's lap just getting started and looks very strong everywhere. Somehow, lap is only P5. Reports on the radio that he doesn't understand. 2 tenths off in S1. equal in S2. 4 tenths off in S3.

Sainz with no pace on his soft run. 7 tenths off Leclerc with a clean lap for both.

Seems to me that, with all the reduced running in practice because of the Red Flags, Red Bull have a bit of trouble hitting the right setup.

Race pace looks fine though, but i don't think they're happy with the suspension setup.

Charles is just bewildered by Russells pace.

[avantman]

I love how Sky keep talking about Max problems, completely ignoring the fact Lewis got much bigger problems lapping 0.8s or more slower than Russell whole session. Meanwhile Max laps faster than Perez, indicating they are lacking pace as a team above all.

[Juzh]

Yeah russell looking good for pole, and for the win even if he's got enough pace advantage to negate usual RB race pace.

[avantman]

Yeah russell looking good for pole, and for the win even if he's got enough pace advantage to negate usual RB race pace.

Are Mercedes looking the fastest PU, even faster than Ferrari again ?

[chrisc90]

Mercedes could be running a super spicy engine setup?

Be interesting to see some longer runs if any are around yet,

[atanatizante]

Some observations after the 3 free practice sessions:

In FP3 almost all drivers did qualy and race simulations on S tyres and only LEC and SAI did it on M tyres (although ALO and STR used for 2 laps the H tyres).

Due to FP1 when almost everybody was concentrating on the upgrades for the 2024 and Tuesday tests and mostly due to a hectic FP2, many teams split their workload with some drivers concentrating on qualy runs meaning that the other driver in the team should do the race sim runnings.

So it seems that tomorrow it`ll be either an S-M-M/S 2-stop race for most of the front runners on the grid or just an M-H/H-M 1-stop for some drivers which will qualify further down the road, in case of a SC/VSC phase earlier in the race ...

It was clear that the M tyres would be the main race tyre, but it`ll have to be seen whether those drivers will start on M or on H tyres ...

I had to add that if tomorrow at the race time is hotter than Friday then the H tyre will be the main tyre race due to the higher operation window ...

[Juzh]

Yeah russell looking good for pole, and for the win even if he's got enough pace advantage to negate usual RB race pace.

Are Mercedes looking the fastest PU, even faster than Ferrari again ?

so far RB easily fastest on straights