2025 Race 24 - Abu Dhabi

[Nitrodaze]

Still 50 seconds behind his teammate!
However I do give "The Boss" a lot of stick. I don't really believe it. I'm just sort of a rude a--hole that way!

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Nah, you are free to say what you think. Dropping out in Q1 was always going to produce a 50-second gap. It could have been worse, like finishing outside the points. But I agree with you, it seems the partnership between Ferrari and Hamilton may not bear fruit. And l think Ferrari would be the reason why. They have no excuse as this is the third multiple world champion that Ferrari has been unable to win a championship with. With that kind of statistics, it is definitely a Ferrari problem, not the drivers.

[airshifter]

Dude's toast dawg.
Dude's toast.
I think you know who I'm talking about.

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Yeah I kind of figured you were talking about that dude. I think that dude made a bad move and now he's paying the price. Even if they get the car right someday he has to beat his teammate, and right now it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon.

[Nitrodaze]

Yeah I kind of figured you were talking about that dude. I think that dude made a bad move and now he's paying the price. Even if they get the car right someday he has to beat his teammate, and right now it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon.

Ha, you forgot about the China sprint, The car went downhill from that race. If the car is competitive, the picture would be quite different and Leclerc knows it.

[Used to be Starter]

Nah, you are free to say what you think. Dropping out in Q1 was always going to produce a 50-second gap. It could have been worse, like finishing outside the points. But I agree with you, it seems the partnership between Ferrari and Hamilton may not bear fruit. And l think Ferrari would be the reason why. They have no excuse as this is the third multiple world champion that Ferrari has been unable to win a championship with. With that kind of statistics, it is definitely a Ferrari problem, not the drivers.

No question a Ferrari problem. You don't get that bad quite that fast. Mid pack team next year?

[airshifter]

Ha, you forgot about the China sprint, The car went downhill from that race. If the car is competitive, the picture would be quite different and Leclerc knows it.

Both drivers had much better finishes after China, and Leclerc even managed two back to back podiums in the last 1/4 of the season. But I'm sure Charles is shaking in his drivers shoes.

Unless you want to count that one Sprint win as something important, Leclerc beat Lewis in virtually every metric that a driver is judged by. That can always change, but it's hard to ignore that one driver managed 7 podiums in races while the other had none.


No doubt the Ferrari was far from the best car this season, but considering the double DSQ in China, and two more races with double DNF's, they could have easily beat RB in the constructors points. For that matter had Lewis matched Charles on points they would have beat Red Bull. AND Mercedes! Granted Red Bull is essentially reliant on a single driver, but performance alone kept Ferrari from being higher in the WDC either way. But Ferrari is Ferrari, and the car isn't going to suddenly be on top because they hired a new driver.

He picked his poison, he paid the price. I'm sure Kimi is ok with the decision though, he had a better car and a podium in his rookie season.

[airshifter]

As for the race itself, not much real excitement but once again a major shuffling of the deck somewhat. I think these cars have smaller setup windows and it doesn't take much to get it wrong.

Max did what Max does when he puts it on pole, and probably the best move of the race by far was Oscar hanging it on the outside on the hard tire. Lando didn't really try to defend it much, but I'm not sure he could have if he wanted to. As for Lando, he seemed cool and content to just stay in third and take his title, and it was probably the safest move to make. Well done on him for bouncing back over time and fighting for that title as Oscar faded and Max came back on strong through the end of the year.

As for Max, once again proving he never gives up. He overcame a deficit of over 100 points when McLaren got the upper hand and RB faded for a period. It's hard to take anything from his season really. Though McLaren might have made it hard with the split strategy I was glad to see neither Max or RB pushed to try to back Lando up into traffic. They just played their hand and hoped for Lando to have issues.

Leclerc had a strong race overall, but part of me wonders if Lando just did enough to keep him at bay and never really pushed his own pace much. Either way, Charles overall had a decent weekend.

Stroll managed to get into the points again, and it goes without saying Alonso had a better race as usual. Kimi just didn't put things together, but George managed to have a decent weekend. The rest of the field had some surprises as well, some of the "rest of the best" usual drivers struggled.



Overall not a bad season. Lots of car development kept it a bit more fun than some years, and having three drivers in contention for the WDC kept it interesting.



Well done Lando, and kudos to Oscar as well. I think both have upped their game some and they fought through the years in a solid way.