What to make of Aussie rookie’s low-key start; Red Bull boss dodges Pérez question: Talking Pts

It’s advantage McLaren after the first day of track action at the Abu Dhabi championship decider.

Ferrari starts the weekend with the tall order of closing down its 21-point deficit to the leader.

The order became dizzyingly taller still after a worst-case bad day on Friday, with Leclerc pre-emptively picking up a grid penalty that will massively hamper Ferrari’s chances of scoring the big points it needs to have any chance of winning the title.

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McLaren, on the other hand, enjoyed a smooth two hours of running that saw it top the time sheets. It’s playing down expectations, but all signs are that the British team will be breaking its quarter-century title drought on Sunday.

DISASTER FOR FERRARI AS SICK LECLERC COPS PENALTY

Charles Leclerc’s Friday couldn’t have started any worse, arriving at the track exhausted after having been kept up all night with a bout of food poisoning.

He was determined, however, to appear in FP1. It was an emotional day for the Monegasque, with brother Arthur Leclerc commandeering Carlos Sainz’s car for Ferrari’s last mandatory rookie outing. It would be the first time in F1 history that siblings have entered an official F1 session as teammates.

And there was the bigger picture too. Ferrari was hopeful that the Yas Marina Circuit would suit its car and give it a fighting chance of overcoming its 21-point deficit to McLaren for the constructors championship. FP1 was the first crucial step in getting ahead on this title-deciding weekend.

But much of that hope evaporated shortly before the start of first practice, when a battery issue was detected in the back of Charles Leclerc’s car when it was fired up for the session.

Frantic work ensued to change the battery, with Leclerc getting out on track with around half an hour remaining and subsequently topping the session.

But his car was hiding a terrible secret. Every car is allowed two batteries for the season, but the one installed on Friday was his third.

It’s earnt him an automatic 10-place grid penalty.

On a weekend the team really needs a double podium and preferably a one-two for a realistic shot at winning the constructors title, the news could hardly have been any worse.

It would’ve been enough to make Leclerc feel sick if his stomach bug wasn’t already doing that for him.

“That makes our weekend a lot more difficult, but that doesn’t demotivate me at all,” he said. “I feel a little bit better tonight already. I’ll have a good night’s sleep and I’ll come back tomorrow with a battery fully recharged — I’m not trying to play a game with the words!

“Hopefully we’ll have a great day tomorrow and then have an amazing recovery on Sunday.”

But despite Leclerc topping FP1 after missing the first half-hour of the session, by FP2 the picture was less rosy for Ferrari, with McLaren locking out the top two places with a half-second advantage over the Italian team.

“The McLaren seems to be quicker, unfortunately,” Leclerc admitted. “For now they have the upper hand, but we know that it can swing one way or the other very quickly.

“We’ve got to stay on top of everything. It won’t be finished until the very end.”

McLAREN PREACHES CAUTION DESPITE LEADING FRIDAY

Championship leader McLaren ended the day as the undisputed fastest and favourite to close out the title on Sunday.

“McLaren especially seem to be in a league of their own at the moment,” George Russell summed.

But it’s not just that the team enjoyed an advantage of almost half a second over the field and almost 0.6 seconds over Ferrari at the end of FP2; it’s that the MCL38 also looked rapid during the race simulation phase of the second practice session.

Estimated race pace

1. McLaren: fastest

2. Red Bull Racing: +0.12 seconds

3. Mercedes: +0.24 seconds

4. Ferrari: +0.25 seconds

5. Haas: +0.67 seconds

6. Aston Martin: +0.89 seconds

7. Alpine: +0.93 seconds

8. RB: +0.95 seconds

9. Sauber: +1.02 seconds

10. Williams: +1.10 seconds

Carlos Sainz put his team’s deficit down to the dropping temperatures as late afternoon became early evening, changing the balance of the car as the track surface cooled.

“As always, when the track drops in temperature and we put the soft tyres on, our car seems to struggle a bit more,” he said. “We’re probably not half a second off the McLaren, but we’re 0.2 or 0.3 seconds off, which is something we need to try and recover going into tomorrow.

“It’s a deficit that we carried also a little bit into the long runs, so we need to make sure we find a couple of tenths tonight to put us in the battle with them for the weekend.

“I think they’re always going to be a difficult team to beat. At the moment they look the strongest this weekend, so it’s going to be a tough ask to beat them.”

But Lando Norris, fastest on Friday, preached caution, playing down his team’s performance and keeping expectations in check.

“It looks probably better than it is,” he said. “I don’t think the others have turned up their engines yet. It might look glorious for now, but I think we’re still going to have a tough fight tomorrow.”

But there’s a potentially interesting twist emerging for race day.

Despite being fastest in all three sectors, the McLaren was the slowest car in the speed trap, carrying more wing to generate more downforce and protect the tyres.

But Friday practice suggested degradation is much lower than expected, and suddenly a one-stop strategy is projected to be achievable — and potentially neutralising McLaren’s tyre-saving advantage.

With less of a need to conserve rubber, McLaren might need to re-evaluate its set-up choices ahead of the race to ensure it isn’t easy pickings down the straights.

“It’s trying to find a balance of going quicker but saving tyres, especially in the longer run stuff — it’s where can you push more and where can you save?” Norris said of the work his team had to do overnight. “Just trying to find the right compromise is the main thing.”

DOOHAN OFF TO A LOW-KEY START

Jack Doohan’s first weekend as a Formula 1 driver got off to an understated start, the Australian ending the day 19th fastest and 1.4 seconds off the pace. He was seven places and 0.4 seconds slower than teammate Pierre Gasly.

But pure pace isn’t what Doohan should be ranked on after a day of practice. Friday was all about acclimatisation — him to the team, the team to him, and him and the car to each other.

“A great day,” he said. “Just progression throughout the whole day, taking steps forward, just getting closer and closer.

“It obviously a new experience for me this year, especially here. For me I’m just trying to get it closer and closer to where I want to be. I have time before qualifying tomorrow, so I’m just taking steps forward each time I’m in the car.”

Comparing the Alpine teammates’ fastest times on softs, Doohan was faster than Gasly through the first sector but suffered his first big loss of time at the turn 5 hairpin onto the first back straight. He lost gradually around the lap from there, including with a big snap of oversteer at the last corner.

It was under brakes in particular that he struggled, invariably braking earlier and for longer than Gasly.

It’s partly because of the step up to the latest Alpine car. He’s really driven it only once in anger in an FP1 session this year, but his program has never included a low-fuel attack run on soft tyres, where being daring on the brakes often makes the difference.

But he explained it was also down to him setting himself up to peak in time for qualifying rather than missing a step on Friday.

“I didn’t go full beans for the soft tyres run because I wanted to have baseline and have a clean lap before tomorrow,” he said. “It’s good to know that there’s some steps to be made before FP3, but I’ll get to digest all that that soon with the guys.”

He also said the transition to him from the ousted Ocon was still a work in progress, from which more time could yet be found.

“I know I still obviously have a lot of work to do,” he said. “I look to keep extracting and working towards the balance I want and connecting that with the team.

“They’ve been with another driver for the past five years, so it’s a lot to adapt in just one day, to transition all things over, as we have quite different driving styles.”

Doohan has typically been rapid over one lap on his climb to Formula 1. How he fares in qualifying will be an interesting indicator of how much work he still has to do to acclimatise to being a full-time F1 driver.

PÉREZ SPECULATION HEIGHTENS AS HORNER DODGES DECISION QUESTION

Sergio Pérez insists that he’s staying at Red Bull Racing next season, but fervent speculation suggests he’ll be axed as soon as Monday, when Red Bull managers will meet to decide on the brand’s four-car driver line-up for 2025.

Fox Sports Mexico has reported Red Bull has already decided Pérez will not race next season. The report has coincided with a clear change in language from team boss Christian Horner, who now reflects on Pérez’s contribution to the team in the past tense and talks about supporting the struggling Mexican until Sunday night.

Horner wouldn’t be drawn on whether a driver change was on the cards, repeating only what sound like valedictory statements about Pérez’s performances in previous years.

“Checo is our driver; he remains our driver, contracted to the team,” he said.

“Obviously this season hasn’t gone to anyone’s plan, particularly with Checo’s performance. Since Monaco it’s been very, very tough for him, and so inevitably once we get this race out of the way we’ll sit down and discuss the future.

“But Checo has been a very important part of our team. He’s done a tremendous job for us — if you think back only three years to that 2021 final [and the] two constructors championships that he’s contributed to as well.

“There’s huge respect for Checo within the team, and nobody likes to see him struggling like the way he has.

“We’ll sit down and discuss things after the season.”

Horner avoided a direct answer when asked explicitly if Red Bull Racing had already resolved to drop Pérez from its line-up.

“We’re fortunate that we’ve got a tremendous pool of talent,” he said. “It was good to see [F2 title contender] Isack Hadjar getting a run out as well in free practice there. We’ve got two talented drivers in RB.

“Until the situation is clear with Sergio and what he wants to do, everything else is purely speculation.”

For the first time, however, Horner admitted that offering Pérez an early contract extension — negotiated in May and announced in June, before the extent of the Mexican’s form slump had become apparent — was a mistake.

“At the time Sergio was performing extremely well — I think he had four podiums in the first five races — and in order to settle his mind and extend that run of form for the rest of the season, we elected to go early, which obviously didn’t work,” he said. “That’s just life sometimes.

“I think nobody more is frustrated with the results than Checo, from his own high standards, and that’s obviously been painful for him.

“We’ve worked tremendously hard to try and support him. and we’ll continue to do so all the way up until the chequered flag on Sunday, where hopefully he can get a good result at the final race of the year.”

HORNER: ‘I LOVE TERRIERS’

Horner’s appearance in the Friday press conference obviously wasn’t going to pass without him being given the right to reply to Toto Wolff’s smackdown from the previous day, in which the Mercedes team boss described him as a “yappy littler terrier” who always had something to say.

Wolff had been responding to Horner labelling George Russell as “hysterical” in a stewards meeting at the Qatar Grand Prix, though Horner has since said it was a reference to his language over team radio when given another set of the unfancied hard tyres.

Horner had a good 24 hours to come up with a riposte in one of the sport’s enduring management-level feuds, dating back to their fractious 2021 championship battle.

The press corps was poised for the latest salvo.

“Well, look,” Horner started. “I love terriers.

“I think they’re great dogs, and I’ve had four of them.

“I had a couple of Airedales, which are the king of the terriers. I had a couple of West Highland terriers called Bernie and Flavio.

“The good thing about a terrier is they’re tremendously loyal. Bernie was an aggressive little dog — he’d go for anybody — and Flavio was a bit more chilled out. He probably ate a bit too much as well.

“To be called a terrier, is that such a bad thing? They’re not afraid of having to go at the bigger dogs.

“I’d rather be a terrier than a wolf, maybe.”

It wasn’t exactly gloves-off stuff.

Perhaps somewhat subdued by Red Bull Racing’s struggles to defend its constructors championship this season, Horner kept himself largely restrained, saying his focus was on making it to the end of this record-breaking season.

“There’s a sort of a love-hate relationship, where I think Toto loves to hate me,” he said.

“A lot has been said. We know Toto likes to talk a lot, but that’s the way it is. We just want to finish the season on a high, have a great race, see these guys battle it out, and hopefully everybody then can have a well-earned rest after this race.

“I would have assumed he’s got a bit more on his plate with it being Lewis’s last race for that team. I think they should be celebrating that rather than focusing on other aspects.

“It’s pantomime season. We’re getting ready for Christmas.”