2023 F1 ABU DHABI GP Race analysis by Peter Windsor
2,827Max Verstappen put his signature to the 2023 season by winning the finale at Abu Dhabi with consummate ease. It was his 19th win of the season and Red Bull-Honda's 21st win from 22 starts. Although Ferrari's Charles Leclerc raced Max hard over the opening lap and finished a clear second, it wasn't enough to clinch P2 in the Constructors' Championship for Maranello. Mercedes secured the runner-up position (and the additional $10m in prize money) by the margin of three points thanks to the P3 of George Russell and the P9 of Lewis Hamilton while Ferrari, the only team other than Red Bull to win in 2023, have the consolation of a little extra wind tunnel test time going into the winter. Sergio Perez was classified P4 in the other Red Bull (after a 5sec penalty had been imposed); McLaren-Mercedes finished P5-P6, ahead of Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso and a hard-charging Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Touri-Honda); Lewis was a disconsolate P9 and Lance Stroll scored the remaining point in the other Aston. Ferrari's Carlos Sainz gambled on a hard-hard Pirelli compound strategy, hoping that a Safety Car intervention might enable a "free" stop for softer tyres, but the race was relatively trouble-free and the Sainz car, its tyres shot, was retired on the final lap after dropping to P15.
Alternative race stats courtesy of Aleš Norskŷ:
www.GPfactsandnumbers.com
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