The Grand Finale - Abu Dhabi 2015 - Qualifying

Greetings Internet,

So the final qualifying session of the season has now been completed under the artificial lights of the Yas Marina circuit and while the front of the grid might look identical to many, many races this season further back there were a few interesting surprises. While the Abu Dhabi GP may be situated on a circuit that does receive it's fair share of criticism for being generally unimaginative and cursed with many identical corners, it does look marvellous under those lights. 

Q1

While continual discussions up and down the pit lane focussing on the future of Red Bull and their engine situation - it was their drivers who took to the circuit first. Descending through the underground pit-lane exit, which for another year it remains surprising that no-one in any racing category visiting the circuit had managed to crash into the barriers there (OK - scratch that one of the GP2 drivers just crashed there). Ricciardo did powerslide away from his garage in eagerness to start his session. Oddly when the two Mercedes drivers elected to start their Q1 efforts, they left the garage on the softer of the two available tyre compounds, but looking at the GP2 race which is currently underway - they might be onto something because the soft tyres are not lasting too long, so saving the more durable compound might be a sensible decision. A combination of the car and tyre advantage ment they went immediately to the top of the time sheets, more than two seconds clear of the nearest rivals. At this stage in the session Hamilton had just under a two tenth advantage over his resurgent team-mate. Lewis naturally trying to halt Rosberg's recent bout of resplendent form. 

Only one driver broke the two second deficit barrier in the early phase of the session on the soft compound rather than the super-softs, and that was Kimi Raikkonen. Initially it was estimated that the harder tyre was 1.7s slower than the softer ones, and Raikkonen was 1.7s behind Hamilton's current time. A gap that became 1.5s on his second lap - indicating that the soft compound is good for multiple flying laps. So on that estimate the Ferrari was on pace with the Mercedes... as it would turn out later, those estimates were quite wrong. Vettel on the other hand wasn't quite as quick as his Finnish team-mate but surely that time was good enough to make it into Q2... right..

More drivers switched onto the super-soft tyres to avoid relegation and make up some positions. The biggest jump forward belonged to Jenson Button in the McLaren - despite being woefully slow on the long straights the McLaren now in 9th place... ahead of Sebastian Vettel. Perhaps the sign that a car that traditionally is relegated from Q! has now ahead would encourage the German to pick up the pace and gain some places. Vettel did go back out but ran wide on the outside of turn three, and for some reason gave up with the rest of the lap... assuming that the Ferrari was safe. But he wasn't with Jenson's late improvement relegating Vettel, and it could have been even worse if Alonso didn't suffer a puncture on his final effort Vettel would have lost another place... so Sebastian was out of the session... makes tomorrow look interesting now doesn't it.

Q2

Onto the second part of qualifying and while we waited for someone to venture onto the track the Sky pit team were searching for answers for Vettel's relegation. Looking for clues to a technical problem explaining why only one Ferrari remained - but Vettel confirmed to the media that he and the team thought he was safe when he certainly wasn't. This time it was the Williams drivers hogging the TV time at the start of the second session, mostly because both Bottas and Massa looked to be driving drift cars rather than finely tuned F1 machines - Valtteri getting the car more sideways than his Brazilian team-mate

through the technical final sector of the lap. Despite being slightly more boring than Bottas' lap, Felipe's effort was quicker and took the early lead. But that time was comprehensively beaten by both Mercedes drivers - once again Hamilton was the car in front, with a larger advantage than he managed in the first part of qualifying. It was seeming more likely that Lewis would put an end to Nico's run of form.

Other cars were having a more problematic session, Nico Hulkenberg was informed by his engineers that he had a deflating tyre and had to pit. While that problem could be resolved Romain Grosjean on the other hand had a more terminal technical problem brewing in his final qualifying event for Lotus before leaving for Haas next season. Grosjean would reappear later in the session but only complete half a lap before braking down again. At the front of the field Raikkonen strapped on a set of the super-softs and if the calculations and estimates were to be believed was heading for a provisional pole position. But as we all sort of expected, that 1.7s lap delta never materialised and Raikkonen only found 0.9s of time on the softer tyre leaving a very sizable gap between himself and the two leading Mercedes cars. But an unusual interloper was making noises at the front of the grid... well not quite the very front, but those seats have been reserved for some geezers in silver cars. This interloper was Sergio Perez, the Force India driver was competing well above the speed of the car, beating Williams and Red Bull drivers putting the car in a very impressive 4th place. 

Down in the relegation zone, it was a very close battle between the two Toro Rosso drivers - at present Mad Max Verstappen held onto the final promotion spot. But in the dying moments of Q2, Carlos Sainz wrestled that place away from the Dutchman, and in the process won the year long qualifying battle against his much hyped team-mate. If it wasn't for constant reliability issues for Carlos, his points tally would also be a lot more favourable. Other drivers in the relegation zone tried to get in on this battle but were unable to make progress. Jenson Button put up a notable challenge finishing Q2 less than two tenths away from dragging a very difficult McLaren into the top ten. Had Hulkenberg not made it back on track and into Q3, Jenson would have scored McLarens best qualifying result of the season... a little too late perhaps but promising signs for 2016. I was expecting TV footage of Alonso watching all this unfolding on a deck chair under the palm trees at the side of the track... missed a trick there.

Q3

And so there were only ten drivers remaining, and the front row was already booked by Toto's posse. But the internal battle at Mercedes was certainly going to be a point of interest. Nico was running with an older Engine with having completed more miles than Hamiltons. But Rosberg has been on a run of form of late has been borderline unstoppable, yet Hamilton had topped all of the previous sessions thus far. So when it came down to the first runs of the session, Hamilton laid down a rather unimpressive laptime and found himself only a couple of tenths ahead of Sergio Perez's Force India who was still out performing his car. Hamilton's weak time meant it was relatively easy for Rosberg to take the provisional pole position in the first round of laps. Impressively Perez's time placed him ahead of Raikkonen's first effort and held onto third place.

When it came to the second runs, and the final qualifying laps of 2015 Hamilton certainly upped the pace and re-took that provisional pole position. For a while it seemed as if the final pole position was going to Hamilton but even with a weaker engine Rosberg was not going to take this lying down. Nico unleashed an outstanding lap to finish off qualifying, not only did he steal first place but he smashed Hamilton's time to almost four tenths of a second. So Rosberg's run of pole positions continues and I imagine a certain Mr Hamilton might be sulking in the team motorhome at the moment.

The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners

In the final qualifying session of the year these are the final points to be awarded on a Saturday.

• 10pts - Sergio Perez - A brilliant performance today, comfortably on the second row of the grid challenging the remaining Ferrari
• 8pts - Jenson Button - Equalling the best ever result for that particular McLaren and on a much more power based track than Monaco the last time Jenson scored 12th place.
• 6pts - Nico Rosberg - A very strong final performance by Nico to claim that pole position and quite so comfortably
• 5pts - Kimi Raikkonen - Did will to uphold Ferrari's honour while Vettel ended up in the relegation zone despite pressure from Perez
• 4pts - Daniel Ricciardo - After being beaten by Kvyat recently, the Australian was the strongest Red Bull and Renault powered competitor in 5th place.
• 3pts - Carlos Sainz - Took the qualifying battle victory today over the much fancied Mad Max Verstappen 
• 2pts - Valtteri Bottas - Scores a couple of points for being the most sideways through the Marina sector of the lap
• 1pt - Sean Gelael - Takes home the final point for being the first driver to crash in the pit exit, just after I'd typed that no-one had completed such a feat.

Looking to Tomorrow

So here it is, the grand finale of 2015 - and this time we arrive in Abu Dhabi with all the championships decided well in advance and most of the positions in each table secured. So this race is pretty much just for fun, a final showcase before going into the winter break. But we've had this open framed approach to the race in Brazil and that didn't work out in the entertainment stakes. In theory Mercedes have no reason to stick to a safe, systematic strategy and can let both drivers go full attack... but there is the matter of another record the team would like to set in this modern era of domination. The most points scored by a constructor through a season, but that would only happen if the two silver cars finish in a dull and predictable 1-2 result. The only reason this points total hasn't been exceeded already is because of the farce that was double points in 2014.

If the battle at the front does fail to deliver, we have the interesting state of the rest of the grid. We have Sergio Perez in a theoretically slower car in front of faster opposition in the shape of Williams and Red Bull, so that section of the grid could all converge in a large unpredictable melee. One can hope anyway. To add to this we have Vettel starting well out of position at the back of the grid in a much faster car than those around him. So he should be making progress and passing cars along the way. With all those ingredients in play the grand finale has all the potential to be very entertaining. Alas that potential has been unfulfilled all too often, so just this once can we go out on a high... please