Dre’s Race Review: F1’s 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

For the final time in 2024, welcome back to Dre’s Race Review. It’s only fitting that Formula 1, probably the most intriguing of the three major series I covered in 2024, closes the show. And with it, glory for McLaren and their first Constructors Crown since 1998, Ferrari’s valiant attempt to win it all at the death, and one last set of stewarding decisions to roll my eyes over. For the final time, let’s get into it.

The End of His Era

After 246 Grand Prix, 84 wins, 153 podiums and 14 combined World Championships, the greatest partnership in Formula 1 history is over, with Lewis Hamilton completing his 12th and final season with Mercedes. 

I’ll never take it as a crime so many of his most hardcore fans have often dished out that I got it wrong as to how great this partnership would be. There were reasons to be doubtful. Mercedes was only in its third year back as a full manufacturer. The talismanic Ross Brawn was on the way out and he got it wrong in bringing back Michael Schumacher. They were still only just in the Top 5 in the Constructors, they were still not great in terms of reliability. Red Bull destroyed the field in 2013. 

We were entering a huge new regulation shift in turbo-hybrid power units and we had no idea what the lay of the land would be in 2014 when the regulations hit. There were reasons to be doubtful. But back then, doubting Lewis Hamilton was the biggest mistake you could make.

People complained when it was Newey, Horner, Vettel and Red Bull on top. It would be child’s play compared to the peak of the Mercedes/Lewis era. Yes, it had two brilliant drivers and it’d be wrong to dismiss Nico Rosberg and Valtteri Bottas’ role in their success, but Lewis Hamilton became the sport’s greatest lead protagonist. He spearheaded the greatest run of dominance in F1 history but also changed the very way we talked about F1 and experienced it.

On the track, Hamilton was suffocatingly brilliant. If he was fully dialled in, he was in a different league to everyone else in the sport. He could do everything well. Race you hard but fair, come through the field, front run, qualify excellently, be consistently brilliant in race trim, and outpoint you to a title. Six of them in his first seven years in silver and black. He had to face some of the sport’s greatest head-on – Rosberg, Vettel, early Verstappen, and he won. Those TV titles in Liberty Media’s era where he came through at the end looking like the final boss were an accurate metaphor for his brilliance. 

But he changed the conversation of the sport off the track too. Mercedes let Lewis cut loose as an escape from the corporate stranglehold Ron Dennis had at McLaren. His dog Roscoe became a cult hero in the paddock. He let his passions become a part of his brand, from fashion, breaking away from Hugo Boss to become one of the leading figures for Tommy Hilfiger, to music and celebrity culture. Hamilton became the first millennial transcendent star the sport has ever had, a genuinely cool and attractive face of the sport. You saw him on Hot Ones, on Stephen Colbert, becoming a recognisable athlete on the greatest stages of all.

And when the world paid more attention to black voices than it ever has off the back of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, he became one of the most high-profile leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement. He (briefly) galvanised the sport into paying attention to its horrendous lack of diversity, inclusion and ignorance. He leaves Mercedes having launched “Ignite”, a collaboration with his own Mission 44 charity, giving educational opportunities to underprivileged children, pledged $20,000,000 of his own money for future causes, led a commission into the sport’s diversity and inclusion and now has all 10 teams chartered to committed improvement, and Mercedes promising to have 25% of its new employees be from minority backgrounds by the end of next year. This means so much to the black community and seeing Lewis pay it forward has been a huge inspiration. 

It’s partly why this chapter closing has felt… kind of empty. I’ll talk about this in more detail in my Season Review in the coming weeks, but it’s been a confusing mix of vibes coming out of Brackley.

The struggles on the track have been well documented. The regulation changes to the floor in 2021 caught them out and led to the slipping of their crowns. The zero sidepod concept was a bust and led to a technical reshuffle. Their 2022 W13 was F1’s equivalent of getting a bad chiropractor. They’ve struggled to get their windtunnel numbers to collaborate with their on-track performance, and they’ve slipped to fourth in the Constructors. And given the relative ease with which George Russell has had his number in 2024, Lewis is leaving Mercedes for Ferrari off the back of the latter worst-ever F1 season. Seventh in the standings is not something we associate with the sports statistical greatest. 

Toto Wolff has stood by Lewis for all of his brilliant tenure, but by all accounts, he was more than prepared to let Lewis go for 2025, something you’d have thought was blasphemy given all their success together. The theories make sense – Toto truly believes Andrea Kimi Antonelli is the sport’s future S-Tier prospect, and given Wolff has been chasing Verstappen’s golden carrot since he burst through a decade ago, he doesn’t want to lose out again on a second chance. Combine that with Russell entering his prime at 26, and has arguably been the better driver in two of their three seasons together, Toto was prepared to let Hamilton walk. 

The on-track performances haven’t helped the feelings. Hamilton wanted to retire the car in Qatar after a poor weekend of lacking pace, jumping the start, and then getting a drive-through penalty for being 12kph over in the pitlane. Brazil looked genuinely uncomfortable compared to Russell in wet conditions. He’s been very open in his struggles with qualifying in this car and questioned his own speed on occasion with the media when times have been down. If this was a retirement tour, we’d be saying Lewis is “going out sad”.

With the amount of doubling down Toto has done justifying this move to the media stacking up higher than my Balatro runs, a clean break for all parties seems like the right thing to do. Lewis himself has called it awkward from January when the announcement first dropped. But Toto can focus on developing Antonelli, who could be a future Superstar while trying to get the 2026 regulations right for Mercedes to reclaim its former glory. All the while Lewis can move to Ferrari, tick off the final box in his legacy and potentially cement his GOAT status with the first World Championship for the prancing horse in over 16 years. 

But it won’t be easy. I think for the first time since his Mercedes move in 2013, Lewis’ is at a genuine career crossroads. He turns 40 in January. His qualifying has become a genuine problem this season. Losing his head-to-head to Russell 19-5 in Qualifying and 16-8 in races this season is a bit of a shock. There’s still been flashes of true brilliance with Lewis like his win at Silverstone, and his well-managed win at Spa this year, but Lewis hasn’t beaten this badly over a season by a teammate since Jenson Button’s 2011.

And walking into Charles Leclerc’s den, the man who has made Ferrari his own in his half-decade there, running Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz out of town, is not going to be an easy matchup. It’s about as tough as it gets. I don’t think we’re at crisis talks with where Hamilton is as a driver, and he’ll get that benefit of the doubt given what we know he’s capable of, but the “Is he phoning it in” questions I’ve seen from fans aren’t without some merit at this point.

Mercedes juggling the pain of a disappointing season and the loss of its talismanic superstar, blending in with celebrating that very same success they’re chasing again has been fascinating and sometimes sad to watch. Where both parties go next while be fascinating, and it may just define multiple legacies. But for now, a toast, to Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton, the greatest F1 partnership of them all. And in the worlds of his former teammate Valtteri Bottas: What’s next?

Whatever It Took

It at times, felt like a team coated in Papaya that was learning how to win again after such a long time away. It was a team that raised eyebrows by purging its social media and claiming they were coming for 2024 via “Whatever it takes”. And you know what, they got it.

Lando Norris winning this weekend never really looked in doubt. He qualified on pole superbly with Oscar Piastri completing the lockout, Carlos Sainz only managing third and Leclerc getting caught out by track limits and was eliminated in Q2, on top of a 10-place grid penalty for using an energy store outside of their allocation.

Ferrari was given a glimmer of hope when Leclerc surged through the field, eighth by the end of the opening laps from 19th on the grid, with Piastri spun out by Verstappen at Turn 1 lunging for second. Ferrari couldn’t do anymore, they eventually got their drivers lined up second and third, ready to pounce if Norris made a mistake, but the Brit was unflappable in charge, pulling out several seconds of protection against the undercut and he never looked back. A win was always going top guarantee McLaren the Constructors crown and they got it, Woking’s first since the Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard era of 1998. 

And you have to give them their credit, this has been a successful reboot years in the making. It wasn’t always straightforward with Andreas Seidl moving to Audi. But this is a factory that in the last few years made the big decisions and invested towards this defining push. Dumped Honda and Renault’s power to commit to Mercedes. They moved out of Cologne and built their new windtunnel in Woking. They made the quick decision to move on from James Key and deal with David Sanchez’s shock departure after their horrible start to 2023, reshuffling the technical side to put Andrea Stella in charge of a new structure. Poached Rob Marshall from Red Bull. Moved on from Daniel Ricciardo and made an aggressive play for Oscar Piastri, who’s been a superb pickup for the team and raised their floor. Having a second driver of his quality has been huge in a tight battle with Ferrari and Red Bull’s 1-2 structure. 

And while the execution has been a little cringe and certainly not perfect – Their strategy department and maybe giving Norris too much clout in the clutch and not enough when gunning for both titles had them trip over themselves, they always had the quality to bet on themselves getting over the line and they did. Just. A 14-point margin of victory the closest for a Constructors title since 2006. 

And once again, Ferrari was in the thick of the action. Praise to Fred Vasseur, he’s done a solid job in too galvanising a team that always had the potential to challenge, and did. I do think that horrible middle season patch where they didn’t understand how to make their quick car faster, and as Sainz admitted – Two months lost in R&D, cost them what could have been a comfortable Constructors challenge. With Hamilton coming in 2025, you’d think they’ll be right back in the fight, and arguably with even more driver quality to back them up.

McLaren promised they’d win, whatever it took. Props to Zak Brown. He’s a bold mother trucker, and while I’ve not always taken his style of management seriously *glares at IndyCar*, he’s built an exceptional team here. They said whatever it took, and they’ve done it. Congrats to everyone at McLaren, it’s been a long time coming.

The Final Lightning Round

Amazingly, I think all three of the 10-second time penalties for the opening lap were harsh. I think a part of the problem is because now the base for a collision is 10 seconds rather than 5, I generally think that a stronger degree of blame is necessary before we hand out a stronger penalty. Max never really got fully alongside Oscar, he tried to back out of it but made contact that felt more incidental than anything else. I’d lean towards that being a Lap 1 incident. 

Bottas getting 10 seconds for the spin of Perez was especially harsh, on replay it looked like he had nowhere to go at the chicane. And while Piastri hit Colapinto from behind and caused a puncture, the Argentine was moving in the braking zone a bit.

I think you need a degree of mitigation for all the close quarters on Lap 1. If you’re not, that’s fine, but then why wasn’t Hulkenberg punished for locking up into Ocon and Colapinto in Qatar last week? Once again, I ask, where’s the consistency?

PS: There will always be a startling irony of the track being cleared to go green on the final lap despite Liam Lawson hopping out of his car on a live track with his car rolling and not in control. 

Sergio Perez. Going out sad.

Pierre Gasly has been superb to finish the season, his seventh place enough to beat Hulkenberg’s eighth and win the battle for sixth in the Constructors. It makes you wonder if fifth overall could have been on if they found a way for the team and Ocon to co-exist on an equal footing, given Aston Martin’s continued struggles.

My name is Maximus Kevinus Magnussen. Commander of the armies of the Haas, general of the Arbiters of Chaos, and loyal servant to the true emperor, Ayao Komatsu. Father to a beautiful Laura, husband to a Hulkenberg, and I will have my vengeance, in this Sportscar or the next. 

Congratulations to Abbi Pulling on winning the F1 Academy title. Again. Yes, adding a third race to Abu Dhabi to compensate for Qatar’s cancellation uncrowned Pulling as Champion because it added one more point available than the Brits’ 83-point lead over Doriane Pin. Pulling brought it home with taking all three pole positions on Friday, but a bit of an oversight from the organisers that was a little embarrassing, even if no harm was ultimately done.

Congratulations also to Gabriel Borteleto on taking the F2 title, as well as Invicta doubling up with the team’s crown. He was a model of consistency and came through in the clutch in the end. He becomes just the fourth driver of the modern age to do the F3 and F2 double back-to-back (Russell, Leclerc and Piastri are the other three). Amazingly, he’s done it with just three wins in the last two years. 

Alongside the fact there were 18 different winners in F2 this season, and Leonardo Fornaroli winning the F3 title without winning a race at all, I wonder just how the hell we evaluate anything on the juniors now given Kimi Antonelli and Ollie Bearman had seats guaranteed from back in March. Weird vibes all-round. PPS: Isack Hadjar being denied a chance with his clutch on the start line for the Feature Race and killing the title fight right there and then is the MOST Mechachrome of moments.

PPPS: A salute to Alex Jacques who’s leaving the F2 commentary box at the end of the season. He’s been their greatest commentator since the series began, who’s been there as a soundtrack for the ridiculousness the series often produces, and been an arm around us of empathy and appreciation when things have been bad. Even in his parting words, he mentioned Anthoine Hubert and Juan Manuel Correa, a touch of class he’s always had. A salute to one of the very best in sports today.

We don’t need 24 Grand Prix. I don’t care what you tell me. I’m fucking tired.

I want to record Nico Rosberg and Danica Patrick having a causal conversation. Just me who would want that recorded? Would be fascinating.

Dre’s Race Rating: 5/10 (Meh) – Honestly, a bit of a cut above the usual F1 mediocre on this one. There were some genuinely good battles. Give Karun Chandhok and his team some due, removing the triple chicane has made it a more raceable track. We had some good battling and counter-attacking on the second DRS straight, and the Hamilton final-lap pass over Russell was worth an extra half-point. I still don’t like this place but it’s not as DOA as it was in years past.