ABU DHABI BRINGS THE SEASON TO A CLOSE WITH A TEST AS WELL

MARIO ISOLA - PIRELLI HEAD OF MOTORSPORT   
 

“We go from the lights of Las Vegas to the Abu Dhabi sunset in the space of just a few days, after a journey of just over 13,000 kilometres, for a race that is now well-established as the season-closer. Yas Marina will host the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for the 15^th time this weekend, and 11 of those have marked the final race of the season.

The track was modified in 2021 to make it faster and more flowing, which also created extra overtaking opportunities, as we saw over the last two races there. Yas Marina is on the lower end of the scale when it comes to tyre demands, despite the vertical loads on the front axle in particular. As a result, we’ve selecting the softest three compounds, with C3 as the hard, C4 as the medium, and C5 as the soft. This is the same choice as last year, and also an identical selection to that seen at Las Vegas last weekend: confirmation of the versatility of the current compounds.

As has become customary now, there will be a test day on the Tuesday after the grand prix with each team fielding two cars: one for young drivers and the other in theory for testing tyres. However, there will be no new compounds to try out: the FIA recently communicated that the 2024 compounds will be the same as this year, with the only change being that there are now five rather than six available of them, due to the elimination of the C0 (which was never used during a race weekend this year). So the test could be helpful for the teams to work on tyre management by gathering data for next season. The teams will have a predetermined tyre allocation for the test. The car doing the tyre work will have 10 sets available at the test, consisting of one C1, one C2, two C5, and three sets each of C4 and C3. Meanwhile, the car for young drivers will have two sets each of C3 and C5 available as well as four sets of C4.”

THE TYRES ON TRACK 

• For the last race of the season, the nominated compounds are C3 as P Zero White hard, C4 as P Zero Yellow medium and C5 as P Zero Red soft.
• Nearly all the drivers started last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on the medium tyres. The top three finishers – in order, Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez – all stopped just once to put on the hard tyre, between laps 16 and 21. 
• The Yas Marina lap consists of 16 corners as well as some faster sections, including a 1.2-kilometre straight between turns 5 and 6. The track modifications that took place in 2021 shortened the lap to 5.28 kilometres.
• Lewis Hamilton is the most successful driver on five wins in Abu Dhabi, followed by Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel (on three wins each). Mercedes and Red Bull are the most successful teams, with six wins each.