After the mammoth journey from Las Vegas to the gas-rich state of Qatar it was relative stroll (forgive the play on names) just down the Gulf, to the oil & gas-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi, for the final race of the season. Heading to the Yas Marina Circuit, there was certainly relief and encouragement for the team, after scoring points in Qatar. It certainly showed that if the opportunity presents itself, Alonso is able to seize what he can. Mike Krack commented, “Fernando's seventh-place finish put a welcome smile on a lot of faces and it makes this weekend in Abu Dhabi a little easier." Expanding on the aims for the race, he said, “The most important target this weekend is securing P5 in the Constructors' Championship. We want to finish the season on a high – every team does. If I could express a personal wish, it would be fantastic to have both drivers in the points at this final race.” There was also a lot to play for in this race by 2 of the major teams, McLaren & Ferrari, who would be battling it out to win the Constructor’s Championship. And this would also be Lewis Hamilton’s last race in a Mercedes after driving for them for 12 years - the longest & most successful team-driver combination in F1 history.
Felipe Drugovich took Lance Stroll’s place in the AMR24 for the first free-practice (FP1) session and completed 22 laps in the one hour allocated. It was his second testing session of the year, fulfilling an FIA requirement for all teams to run a rookie in 2 FP1 sessions. Of the six rookies to run in the session, Felipe recorded the fastest time and would return to the cockpit on Tuesday, after the race, for F1's post-season test. He did well, finishing the session P9, ahead of Alonso who was P11. Both cars ran aero rakes, to gather data and tested several other components, with one eye on car development for 2025. FP2 was more challenging though. The team tried a few different things on the car and then attempted to optimise them as they sought to find the right setup for the rest of the weekend. But the cars in the midfield were all tightly packed, resulting in Alonso finishing 16th only & Stroll 18th. The following day Alonso was one of the first drivers out on track for FP3 and he was in a positive frame of mind as he radioed in: “I think it’s going to be a good day.” Initially, he had reason to be, as after 15 mins Stroll was P1 & Alonso P3, despite a low flying bird distracting him in the middle sector, having gone faster than everybody in the other 2 sectors. However, only 4 cars had been out by that stage. Reality soon set in & by the halfway stage Alonso was running in P13, Stroll P15. 15 mins later they had slipped to 14th & 17th and at the end they finished 15th & 18th respectively.
The team were still a little pessimistic after the disappointing positions in FP3 and they made further changes to the cars ahead of Qualifying. Stroll was the first to hit the track on soft tyres and he set the early benchmark in Q1. However, while his time tumbled down the order, to 16th and into the elimination zone, Alonso went 8th on his first run. Then, on his next lap, Stroll displaced Alonso and he went 8th. With just under 5 mins left Stroll was still 8th and it was Alonso who had dropped to 14th. They both survived though - Stroll 12th, Alonso 15th. In Q2 on their first runs Alonso managed to place his AMR24 in 8th place & Stroll just 1 place behind him, in 9th. As they went out for their final runs, they were both in the elimination zone, 11th & 12th respectively. Alonso went well on his fast lap & hauled himself up to 7th. Stroll though, could only manage 13th and he was eliminated. The reason for Stroll not making it into Q3 was that the team had used 3 sets of soft tyres in Q1 to get him out of the low position he was in and the team didn't want to use any more fresh tyres until the race. It was all put on Alonso’s shoulders to qualify as high up the grid as possible and after the first runs he was in an impressive 6th spot, but at the end of the session he finished 8th from where he would start the race. The McLarens looked to have one hand on the Constructors Championship when Norris and Piastri locked up the front row.
Lining up on the grid for the race, there were a couple of major drivers well of out of their normal starting positions, including Hamilton, who had a disappointing Qualifying due to a timing bungle by the team, and Leclerc, who had to take a 10-place grid drop because Ferrari needed to fit a new battery to his car and that exceeded his allowance of 2 for the season. Both the Aston Martins had good starts, especially Stroll, who hauled himself up to 9th, with Alonso getting up to 6th, partly down to Piastri and Verstappen getting themselves into a tangle and falling down the order. Once they sorted themselves out on the next lap there was a brief Virtual Safety Car period when Perez had a tangle with Bottas, but then the race got back underway. Verstappen was quickly back in contention & behind Stroll, passing him on lap 6. However, Verstappen had been handed a 10 second penalty for the collision with Piastri, which he would have to serve at his next pit-stop. Leclerc however, had the best start of all, rocketing from 19th to 8th and by lap 9 he'd made another pass & was within a second of Alonso, passing him on the next lap, partly due to Alonso going off track trying to defend the threat of the oncoming Ferrari driver. On lap 12 Stroll came into the pits for his first of 2 planned stops for fresh tyres & he came out 16th. Out on track Verstappen passed Alonso after which it was decided to bring Alonso in for his first tyre stop - he came out 12th just ahead of Stroll. Stroll meanwhile, was fending off the fast-approaching McLaren with Piastri at the wheel and on lap 15 he passed Stroll. Piastri then proceeded to gain on Alonso, coming to within a second of him. But Piastri had also been handed a 10 second penalty, for driving into the back of Colapinto and would have to serve it at his next pit-stop. Fortunately, although Piastri was right on the tail of Alonso, he just couldn’t get past. So the AMR24s were running 12th (Alonso) & 14th (Stroll). On lap 17 Stroll was shown a black & white flag for exceeding track limits too many times & he was needing to take more care. Despite Piastri’s pressure & maybe because of it, Alonso started to gain on Doohan (who took over from Ocon for this race in the Alpine) ahead of him, eventually passing him on lap 23. Tsunoda, Doohan & lastly Lawson all came into the pits over the next couple of laps which moved Alonso up to 9th & Stroll to 11th. Just after the halfway point of the race Verstappen eventually came in for his pit stop & to serve his 10 second penalty. This resulted him coming out behind Stroll, but the faster Red Bull, on fresher tyres, soon overhauled Stroll on lap 32. Next, it was Piastri’s turn to come into the pits & to serve his penalty during the stop. The team decided to bring Stroll in as well, so as to gain the place advantage while Piastri was serving his penalty. He came out 14th. Verstappen, meanwhile, was putting his fresh tyres to full use & passed Alonso on lap 36, after which Alonso was instructed to bring his AMR24 into the pits for fresh tyres, to take him to the end of the race. He came out 12th. On the next lap Piastri caught & passed Stroll, but both the Astons gained a place when Zhou came in for his second pit stop & Stroll moved up another place after passing Doohan. By lap 42 & with 15 laps to go, Alonso, who was gaining on Tsunoda, was 11th, Stroll 13th. Piastri though, once again, brought his McLaren to within a second of Alonso, but the matador managed to overtake Tsunoda & put a gap between himself & Piastri, who then went off track trying to pass Tsunoda. With just 10 laps to go, Alonso set his sights on catching Albon, who was 4 seconds up the road. By the end of lap 51 he’d managed to bring that down to within a second and then overtook him on the next lap. Slightly further back, Stroll was trying to make progress of his own, in a fight with Tsunoda, firstly passing him & then Tsunoda regaining the place. 4 laps later Stroll managed to pass Tsunoda again & made it stick this time. At the chequered flag, Alonso finished 9th & scored 2 more points, Stroll finished 12th. However, he must have triggered a penalty after being shown the black & white flag during the race, as he was classified 14th. For the Aston Martin team though, it was job done – 5th place in the Constructor’s Championship sealed. Norris won the race and in doing so secured the Constructors Championship for McLaren, their first since 1998! The 2 Ferraris of Sainz & Leclerc were 2nd & 3rd, meaning they were the Constructors Championship runners-up by a very close 14 points. Hamilton, who started the race 18th, also put in a Herculean drive and pulled himself all the way up to 4th – a very impressive drive on his last time out in a Mercedes.
After the race, Alonso pronounced, "It's been a positive end to the season with two races finishing in the points. We had to execute a perfect race and we capitalised on some mistakes by our rivals around us. We have some great new additions to the team in 2025 and I'm excited for what's to come." Stroll summarised his race with "I had a good start to the race and made up 4 positions on the opening lap, but the car didn't have the performance to fight for much more today. After the pit stops, we didn't have the pace to climb all the way back through into the points.”
That's it for this season. Wishing you a very happy & enjoyable Christmas and all the very best for 2025. It’s only 97 days until the start of next season.