Formulation 1’s remaining fortnight of the season sees the circus head again to the Center East.
Whereas the Drivers’ title is now completed and dusted with Max Verstappen topped for a fourth consecutive 12 months, for the three groups nonetheless in with an opportunity of claiming the Constructors’ title, McLaren main Ferrari and Pink Bull, there may be nonetheless every part to play for with 103 factors on the desk.
The final back-to-back of this the longest ever Formulation 1 season, will get underway in Qatar, the sixth Grand Prix weekend to be run to the Dash format this 12 months. 13,000 kilometres because the crow flies and an eleven hour time distinction separate Doha from Las Vegas. They’re each evening races, held on the sting of huge deserts, however that is the place the similarities finish. In Nevada, drivers needed to cope with a avenue circuit that includes medium to low velocity corners with air and monitor temperatures solely simply above the ten °C mark. In Qatar alternatively, the Grand Prix is held on a everlasting circuit with medium-high velocity corners and ambient temperatures across the 25 °C mark.
Relating to the tyres for use, solely the C3 is carried over from Vegas. In truth, on the Lusail monitor, the tyres are subjected to power ranges similar to these at Suzuka and Silverstone and so the toughest trio of compounds within the 2024 vary can be used, with the aforementioned C3 as Comfortable, the C2 as Medium and the C1 as Arduous.
That is the third version of the Qatar Grand Prix, the 2 earlier occasions having been held in 2021 and 2023. Final 12 months the weekend was affected by a choice taken by the FIA, imposing a most of 18 on the variety of laps that one set of tyres may full within the race, which led to all of the drivers making three pit stops. The Race Director’s choice was deemed obligatory after a notification from the Pirelli engineers. Following the standard evaluation of the tyres returned to them by the groups after the primary and second day of monitor exercise, they identified the potential of micro-lacerations within the sidewalls between the tread compound and the carcass cords, attributable to affect generated from repeatedly driving over the kerbs at some corners.
Over the previous few months, the FIA and Pirelli have labored collectively to arrange for this Grand Prix to make sure that what occurred in 2023 is not going to be repeated. The pyramid-shaped kerbs have had their suggestions rounded off at seven of the monitor’s 16 corners: the primary two after the beginning, turns 4 and 10 and the three from 12 to 14, the part that had most confused the edges of the tyres. Engineers within the Pirelli Motorsport R&D division have carried out intensive and prolonged exams on the dynamic check beds in Milan, utilizing a pattern of the brand new kerbs equipped by the FIA. Moreover, the engineers additionally analysed tyres from exams carried out by some Formulation 1 groups in latest weeks on the Lusail circuit, operating pre-2024 vehicles. Although the tyres had been clearly not an identical to these from the 2024 vary, the acquired information has nonetheless been helpful to substantiate the outcomes of simulations and the indications from the check mattress. It must also be famous that the FIA has ensured {that a} gravel strip is added to the skin of some kerbs to dissuade drivers from overstepping the mark as a way to go faster.
One other function of final 12 months’s race was the very excessive humidity stage on Sunday which, mixed with the slightly excessive temperatures of a Qatari October, made life very bodily demanding for the drivers, a lot in order that a few of them felt in poor health due to the warmth within the cockpit and one driver even needed to retire from the race. This 12 months the state of affairs needs to be higher on this respect because the race is going down over one month later. Nevertheless, the situations final 12 months led to a latest choice from the FIA World Council to authorise the usage of a standardised cooling system within the cockpit on the hottest Grands Prix, as from subsequent 12 months.
Nevertheless, it is onerous to keep away from the excessive temperatures emanating from the Lusail monitor which was resurfaced in time for final 12 months’s Grand Prix, to the extent that graining might be a function, because it was in Las Vegas, albeit for reverse causes: in Nevada it was attributable to the chilly and the dearth of grip resulting in the tyres sliding on the asphalt, inflicting abrasion of the tyre floor. This might have a big affect on race technique with the tyres probably affected by important thermal degradation. Moreover, there are so few precedents to those situations that for now it’s inconceivable to make predictions. Leaving apart the occasions of 2023, it needs to be remembered that, in 2021, some drivers solely made one pit cease and others, like Hamilton and Verstappen who completed first and second, fought for the win operating a two-stop technique. Whereas maintaining in thoughts that 2021 featured vehicles from the earlier technology, due to this fact with very totally different tyre compounds, there have been many alternative decisions made when it comes to compounds used, as certainly was the case in final 12 months’s Dash when 12 drivers began on the Medium and eight on the Comfortable.
Within the two editions of this occasion so far, the spoils of victory and pole positions have been shared equally between Hamilton and Verstappen, the one methods to separate them being that the Dutchman has the benefit, having recorded the race quickest lap on each events, in addition to ending second in 2021. The opposite podium finishers are Alonso, who was third for Alpine in 2021, and Piastri and Norris, respectively second and third final 12 months.
The Qatar Grand Prix weekend can be the penultimate spherical of two collection that normally run along side Formulation 1, specifically Formulation 2 and the F1 Academy, each having Pirelli as their sole tyre provider.
